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S3 Ep28: E-Commerce Journeys: Insights and Anecdotes with Beth Alison-Berggren
16 Plays7 days ago
In this episode of Dial It In, we explore the intricacies of setting up and managing an Amazon store with their guest Beth Alison Berggren, known as Babs. Babs, an Amazon store specialist, shares insights on the challenges and best practices for selling products on Amazon, including the importance of product optimization, dealing with competitors, and the logistics of using Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service. The episode also covers commonly held misconceptions about selling on Amazon, the significance of customer reviews, and practical advice for businesses looking to enhance their e-commerce presence. Additionally, the show highlights the support available for sellers through services like We Fix HubSpot, sponsored by BizzyWeb.
Connect with Babs
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethalisonb/
…
Dial It In Podcast is where we gather our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
Links:
Website: dialitinpodcast.com
BizzyWeb site: bizzyweb.com
Connect with Dave Meyer
Connect with Trygve Olsen
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Transcript
Introduction to Dial it In
00:00:08
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 dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's ring up another episode.
Trigby's Retirement Plan Joke
00:00:30
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? Oh, gosh, that's new to me. Yeah. Well, you remember how I was i was looking at the Aztec death whistle market.
00:00:42
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.
00:00:55
Speaker
I can see that. Yeah. But before that, I need a bridge in order to
Aztec Death Whistle Business Idea
00:00:59
Speaker
get there. So our friend David runs his own Aztec death whistle company, by the way, for those of you are listening, I'm not kidding. And it's a real thing.
00:01:07
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 tolerance for that.
00:01:20
Speaker
I'm investigating what do I need to sell on Amazon? That's what our guest
Guest: Beth Alison Bergeron (Babs)
00:01:24
Speaker
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.
00:01:41
Speaker
Can't wait. Wow. But before that, do we have a sponsor for today? today We do actually. So our sponsor today is WeFix HubSpot. Is your HubSpot portal cluttered and inefficient? WeFix HubSpot powered by BusyWeb specializes in customizing and optimizing your HubSpot experience.
00:01:56
Speaker
Our team of certified experts offers tailored solutions, including training, re-onboarding, architecture reviews, and data restructuring, ensuring your portal aligns perfectly with your business needs.
00:02:09
Speaker
Don't let a disorganized system slow you down. Visit we fix hubspot.com to schedule your complimentary consultation and start transforming your HubSpot portal today.
00:02:22
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 Alison Bergeron known as Babs.
Babs' E-commerce Journey
00:02:32
Speaker
And it is true. She is known as Babs is a founder of Bergeron information group or big.
00:02:38
Speaker
where she specializes in helping businesses establish, optimize, and scale their Amazon presence. 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.
00:02:55
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.
00:03:09
Speaker
you know 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.
00:03:25
Speaker
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. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction.
00:03:37
Speaker
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. And at the time they were doing, that it was down to
Challenges of Competing on Amazon
00:03:50
Speaker
dribs and draps. They had been very big.
00:03:52
Speaker
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. 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.
00:04:24
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.
00:04:35
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 in metric.
Understanding the Amazon Buy Box
00:04:44
Speaker
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.
00:04:58
Speaker
Because the 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.
00:05:10
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.
00:05:27
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 that you'll find that someone else is using a UPC on Amazon for something else. And that's ah could an incredible hit.
00:05:47
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
Owning the ASIN
00:05:56
Speaker
ASIN. And they' 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.
00:06:04
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.
00:06:15
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.
00:06:34
Speaker
So you have to have an account in good health and you have to have the lowest price. Think that through. and If there's other people selling the same product that you are and everyone wants the buy box, what happens is ends up being a chase down to the bottom penny.
00:06:48
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.
Benefits of Exclusive Agreements
00:07:01
Speaker
That's the business I bought was doing that very thing. They were buying discounted stuff through discounted discounters, like wholesalers around the U S bringing them to inexpensive products and competing for the buy box.
00:07:15
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.
00:07:26
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.
00:07:42
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.
00:07:54
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.
00:08:06
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.
00:08:17
Speaker
So they're 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. It hasn't arrived or it arrived damaged. So I had to deal with all those to keep my account healthy.
00:08:36
Speaker
yeah I did the classic mistake and I know better. i have an MDA. I knew better than to put all my eggs in one basket. And now 99% of my sales was in this one front line.
00:08:47
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 in that business way, why should we
Amazon Competition and Product Obsolescence
00:08:59
Speaker
have her sell that?
00:09:00
Speaker
We could do the same thing. So they opened up their own Amazon. going no And then it gave me 24 hours to stop selling their product. Oh, no. have to compete for the buy box.
00:09:12
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.
00:09:25
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 that, 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.
00:09:51
Speaker
So how do you balance that? And how do you manage the business to, do 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?
SKU Mismanagement and Counterfeits
00:10:03
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 101 for this package and you changed the packaging and you still call it 101.
00:10:26
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 wholesaled everything that was in the old packaging off. And they're like, great, we sold it.
00:10:37
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 was that was just a great solution.
00:10:55
Speaker
understanding 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.
00:11:06
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 Mason, but if you searched for that product,
00:11:20
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 was less expensive.
00:11:32
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, but I don't think they do any ammunition, and guns, I believe.
00:11:45
Speaker
There's other kind of, I think there's a few other prohibited products, but those are the most obvious ones. Yeah, probably like flammable things, I would guess. I think you can buy like lighter fluid, but you probably can 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 available? Is it hazardous? Because things are getting shipped.
00:12:07
Speaker
So they 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.
00:12:21
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
Prohibited Items on Amazon
00:12:33
Speaker
that I've seen in memes anyway, Amazon products is the 55 gallon drum of lube.
00:12:38
Speaker
And you know, that, i so I don't think that quite counts, but it's a, it's very kind of suspicious. get a 55 gallon drum of barbecue sauce though. So it's there you go. That, that would be right.
00:12:49
Speaker
right That's a lot bar. yeah You'll appreciate this, and you can nerd out a little with ah with us, Babs. i did ah 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.
00:13:20
Speaker
Whoa. Because if yeah there's a whiff of any sort of gun ban or any sort of gun protest, owners would just start buying in mass. And so they would get a run on ammo.
00:13:35
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.
00:13:48
Speaker
So, well, okay. 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 if a I have a product and want to sell it on
Setting Up an Amazon Store
00:14:01
Speaker
Amazon, where do I start?
00:14:02
Speaker
You have to set up your account first and give them all the information on your business or business tax ID number, that all that kind of stuff. You get on, you start creating your store.
00:14:13
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.
00:14:26
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 it's something that's configurable. So you've got something t-shirts and they come different sizes and different colors.
00:14:39
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, I have to go find that other large.
00:14:58
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.
00:15:10
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
Amazon as a Search Engine
00:15:22
Speaker
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 how many brands are actually on Amazon. Amazon is not and the end-all and be-all that has an encyclopedic knowledge of products.
00:15:38
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.
00:15:49
Speaker
but I don't know that for a fact that zero data to build. 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.
00:16:04
Speaker
They just want the presence because people are using it as a search engine. So some people will go to Amazon, find the product and go, Oh, that's interesting. They may buy it on Amazon or they may jump off.
00:16:15
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 EMS right now.
00:16:29
Speaker
I was a little shy. Just a few. Yeah. one Think of like just my tiny little e-commerce company. At one point I probably had a thousand SKUs and that was not a lot of product.
00:16:42
Speaker
But this is what 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?
00:16:56
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.
00:17:14
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 to buy an Amazon. I said, think it back to when I own my e-commerce business.
00:17:26
Speaker
You not buying an Amazon hurts me much more than it hurts anybody else.
00:17:32
Speaker
You just see the pause on their face of what?
00:17:36
Speaker
I think 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 probably because your brand and who you are selling it are often two different things.
Amazon's User Experience
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, and Amazon has trained us from a user experience standpoint to not even look at the seller. 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,
00:18:17
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 to buy it. Right.
00:18:30
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. I want us back up for a second because we keep backing up. We should just start. from it Yeah. ah Let's go back to the beginning. It's a very good place to start. It's Seattle, 1996. There. Jeff needs something. I was a young man.
00:18:45
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,
00:18:58
Speaker
How can you verify that you are working with that
Verifying Authentic Sellers
00:19:04
Speaker
company? Like I 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.
00:19:17
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 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.
00:19:33
Speaker
And if you put in puddle jumpers, it's churras like 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 of the car.
00:19:44
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 is a knockoff. i did power up jumper yeah I've got the first thing is Chiffer kids, swim vest, toddler, swim vest, Hay splash, swim vest.
00:20:00
Speaker
So if it doesn't say Stearns puddle jumper, Stearns, in the puddle, then it's not it's a knockoff. And that's the first way you can identify that it's a knockoff. The second way is to look at who's selling it.
00:20:12
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, and Minnesota, and this address shows Cupertino, California,
00:20:28
Speaker
Guess what? It's not. Ding ding ding. Yeah.
00:20:33
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.
00:20:45
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 that the sponsor does. If you want, you put your products on Amazon, especially if you're You have similar products to someone else.
00:21:07
Speaker
You probably want to do pay-per-click campaigns on Amazon. 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 want do 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 heads.
00:21:27
Speaker
They're like, yep, no. And that's when they're like, bads come back in and tell us how to optimize this.
Costs of Selling on Amazon
00:21:33
Speaker
So then you get into negative keywords and keywords, make sure it's like doing pay-per-click anywhere else.
00:21:40
Speaker
but Okay. So here's my next idea is I've created a 15 month calendar. The men of busy web, 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.
00:22:03
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 month. So 40 bucks a month. This is by no means professional. This is Andy on a bear skin rug.
00:22:16
Speaker
But if you want to help, just picture in that, if you want to have a store, if you want to have it the option to do free shipping to do, if it's accessible by Amazon, you have to do the professional version.
00:22:28
Speaker
So that's the $40 a month. I get all of 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.
00:22:45
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 are 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 than like around 10% of what you're selling.
00:23:11
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.
00:23:21
Speaker
had one client who... Put a product on Amazon. There's a hilarious product called the butt muffler. It's a little, me 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 stare or anything.
00:23:41
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?
00:23:56
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, he would never turn the sound off on his phone.
00:24:12
Speaker
And I'd go to lunch with him. And his father was going. Ringtone. Yeah. Oh, okay. It was there's a 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?
00:24:29
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.
00:24:43
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 they're car.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, he does not no longer run that business. but 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.
00:25:08
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. All right. 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
Fulfillment by Amazon
00:25:29
Speaker
stuff works?
00:25:29
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. I didn't see this huge advantage to be using fulfillment by Amazon when it weighed my ability to do customer service.
00:25:44
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.
00:26:00
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. 15% of the sale of the item.
00:26:13
Speaker
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. 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 to be very expensive.
00:26:31
Speaker
And you really want to avoid that. 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.
00:26:45
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.
00:27:05
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.
00:27:17
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 costs as well as the profits get to them. And probably speed of delivery, right? So if they know that a must ah or that a major municipal center is likely to place a lot of orders, then they could do same day.
00:27:35
Speaker
Right. It's a couple miles away. Okay, got it. Okay, what what are some of the other sort of misconceptions that people have about the putting their product on Amazon?
Myths About Selling on Amazon
00:27:48
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 a gorilla. They're the big gorilla and you just have to learn to deal with them.
00:28:00
Speaker
And if you're patient and dig through, the information is there, but then they have, or at least they had, I haven't looked recently, something called Seller University. It's basically all your frequently asked questions, all your things you want to know.
00:28:13
Speaker
You can go in there and find out and 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.
00:28:36
Speaker
But yeah, the most common assumption is that you put it up on Amazon, it's going to sell. Cause it's in 600 million products. It's gotta be found. There's gotta be an algorithm.
00:28:48
Speaker
Right. Just about the sheer amount of users on Amazon every day. yeah Surely they'll pick my products. 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.
Optimizing Amazon Listings
00:29:04
Speaker
It's the same thing. If you don't do it well there, yeah you're not gonna 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, really that's those people are getting into that, here's one product and here's 40 different ah examples of it. It's not a unique thing, it's not a unique, it's not 15 months of Andy Wintowski in movement. That's an original product line for sure.
00:29:32
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 are like, oh I think I could earn a lot of passive income doing this.
00:29:50
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.
00:30:02
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.
00:30:16
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?
00:30:32
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 affiliated with that 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 gets a ton of traffic,
00:30:56
Speaker
has their gift guides for yes the holiday season. That's all about making affiliate revenue. Got it. Okay. So realistically, if I'm going to sell on Amazon, my, my 15 months of Andy Witowski 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.
00:31:17
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.
Amazon's Packaging Practices
00:31:23
Speaker
And then your other expenses, if you're going to do FBA is you're going to have to ship it into them.
00:31:28
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.
00:31:48
Speaker
So you would probably need to do that that packaging experience yourself. 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.
00:32:02
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 gonna start with you.
00:32:16
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 um ah very mechanized system with people at the end who not being paid a ton of money, no offense, but it's a line job and they grab the most community box.
00:32:40
Speaker
It's Or it's a method of protest that my contact lens solution comes in yeah in a by 36 inch box. You could try. You could come to bed and say, I object, you use this much cardboard to send. And they'll be like, sorry.
00:32:55
Speaker
Okay, great. Let us send you a box to put it in to send it back to us. place back that 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-wrapped, it was the product was going to arrive, is the package is going to open. But you work pretty hard to make sure that you're using the least amount of materials to get that product there safely.
Unboxing Experiences
00:33:15
Speaker
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.
00:33:37
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.
00:33:50
Speaker
How many parts have you left over after you finished putting it together? None, but I had all the unboxing things because i'm now I'm at to the point because I had to buy the chair on the Internet. I never got to sit in it. 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.
00:34:13
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 ah the unboxing? Realistically, all these people are competing for attention just to use.
00:34:31
Speaker
And I think one of the things you said was really illustrative is that Amazon is basically a search engine unto itself now.
Impact on Small Sellers
00:34:37
Speaker
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.
00:34:49
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?
00:35:06
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.
00:35:18
Speaker
I don't think I've ever seen a category that's 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.
00:35:30
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.
Understanding Amazon's Algorithms
00:35:42
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.
00:35:59
Speaker
Okay. All of this is basically run by an algorithm and just the Google search algorithm. Is there a subset of algorithmic studies? Like SEO is basically trying to figure out how to make Google happy.
00:36:14
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?
00:36:26
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?
00:36:41
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.
00:36:53
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?
00:37:05
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?
00:37:21
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 until you start to make a change to that product, then they'll fly, Oh, your description doesn't meet our standards.
00:37:36
Speaker
They don't tend to like the inch mark. They or would write the 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.
00:37:54
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.
00:38:06
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.
00:38:18
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.
00:38:31
Speaker
Got it. ah The kind of last thing I want to talk about is reviews.
Managing Reviews
00:38:37
Speaker
How do you get, how do you work to wrap that up? Yeah. How do you get reviews? What do you do if you get a bad review?
00:38:43
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.
00:39:01
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.
00:39:13
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 not 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.
00:39:51
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.
00:40:07
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.
00:40:21
Speaker
And so a friends and family are viewing it probably not going to say verified purchase. That just means they didn't actually buy it. They're reviewing it. Right. Exactly. So you could have your family buy one or two or three or four and then review.
00:40:35
Speaker
That would be a smarter way to do it 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 one, but two Aztec death whistles.
00:40:50
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?
00:41:03
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.
00:41:14
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 as, oh, oh, I've got my Amazon death whistle or my calendar or whatever, and I really want to 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.
00:41:46
Speaker
there's It's going to take longer than you probably think. 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 wasted revenue.
00:42:04
Speaker
If you just wing it on your own, find a pro talk to Babs.
Beyond Amazon: Babs' Consulting Services
00:42:08
Speaker
And my consulting business overall, Amazon is something, just a portion of what I do. It's wrong to say 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 and their competitors better.
00:42:28
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'm looking for a larger perspective of, should you be doing this?
00:42:40
Speaker
Wow. That's a great final thought.
Episode Closure and Contact Info
00:42:41
Speaker
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.
00:42:54
Speaker
First consultation is always free. Yeah. 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.
00:43:19
Speaker
And much like Tony Kornheiser, we will try and do better the next time.