Keywords have a demand curve, like any
other good. If you imagine it starting right at the top left side of the chart,
there is a huge number of searches for a single overall keyword. As you get
more and more specific, the number of searches falls off – but so does the
amount of competition for that specific keyword (or, if you’re advertising, the
amount you’ll pay for it).
Let’s take an example: “dress”. There will be millions of searches for “dress”. What’s the chance you’ll be at the top? Zero. You can’t afford it.
“Black dress”. Not quite so many searches, but still a lot. And this is a keyword where big sellers are going to dominate, and the keyword’s really expensive if you want to advertise.
“Little black dress”. Fewer
searches, more specific.
“Little black dress Azzedine
Alaia.” Then “Little black dress Azzedine Alaia size 12.” Now
you’ve got a very specific keyword. Anyone who wants Chanel, Givenchy, Saint
Laurent… you’ve excluded them. And you’ve excluded the customers who want
another size.
If you think of Amazon as a kind of store, or a big depot, you’re wrong. What is its business model, really? It’s the same as Google – a massive search engine.
Unlike Google, it’s a search engine that
results in a transaction rather than just a click-through. But it’s a search
engine, and once you understand that, you understand that it works on keywords
as well as on other algorithms.
Keywords need to be relevant. And you need
to get that relevant data into the customer’s head ASAP.
Yes, you can have a great long title on
Amazon that includes all kinds of information about your product. But you need
to put the most important information up there first. For instance, brand. If
I’m looking for a Samsung phone, I need to see the brand up front. If I’m
looking for a cat carrier and the word ‘cat’ doesn’t appear right at the
beginning, I’m not going to read on.
Amazon hijackers can be very sneaky. You
might not even realize you’ve been hijacked, if your sales aren’t much
affected. But someone has copied your product, and they’re selling it with your
brand on it, and taking away your business.
Now there are sometimes viable reasons for
a second seller. You may have an authorized reseller, or someone may have
bought your product with a coupon and is reselling it. But other times, you’ve
been hijacked – someone noticed you were doing well, and they’ve decided to
skim the cream off your success.
You might only notice when suddenly you
start getting one-star reviews. What’s going on? People who think they’re your
customers are getting low-quality product from the hijacker, and blaming it on
you.
So let’s see how you can reduce the risk of
being hijacked, and stop it continuing if it’s already happened.
#1 Being in the Amazon Brand Registry
program should help; it will give you more control over your listings. While it
won’t stop hijackers, the program will put dedicated protection at your
service. (But you do need to have a trademark first, which can take 18 months,
so this isn’t a short term solution.)
A really, really important key to planning your product page on Amazon is to think about what you’d want to see there if you were considering buying it.
#1 Benefits, not features
What potential customers want to see is a
list of benefits. But probably, what you have is a list of product features.
One copywriter has a way of extracting
proper benefit information from clients. The client will say “my spatula
is lime green.” The copywriter asks: “Which means that…?”
The client looks puzzled, and says
“Well, it means it’s green.”
The copywriter nods, and the client gives
the next feature. “It has a cool-touch handle.”
“Which means that…?”
And then the client gets it, and says,
“Which means that if you use it, you’re not going to burn your
fingers.”
I’d suggest you do the same. And keep
asking till you get something that will really make people want to buy.
“This coffee press has double walls.”
Which means that… “The coffee will
keep hot for longer.”
Which means that… “I can make two cups
of coffee at the same time.”
TikTok is immensely powerful once videos go
viral. A single TikTok post had one Amazon seller working overtime with over
10,000 sales in a single day.
Yet so far, brands aren’t well represented
on TikTok. Probably it will take the big brands some time to get on to this
platform, so right now, it’s less competitive than Facebook or Twitter.
• Start by building a presence. Tailor your
content for the platform – short, snappy, amusing. And when we say short, we
mean short – 15 seconds, that’s it! (On the other hand your video quality
doesn’t need to be top-notch – a decent smartphone will produce all you need.)
• Make sure your content is all relevant to your
niche. Keep everything on-brand; content, hashtags, the influencers you
collaborate with, your bio, even the emoji
you use.
Every $1 you save is $1 extra profit. In
the short term, this does not seem like a lot. But what if you sell 30,000
units a year?
The cheaper your product is – the higher
your profit margin will be and the less you need to invest in inventory. Your
cash flow improves too.
We will cover some of our top strategies
for reducing your costs.
Finding a Supplier
If you only ask 3 factories for a quote –
it is unlikely you will get the best item for the best price. It is super
important to make sure that you have contacted every available supplier for the
item. Go through Thomas Net, Alibaba, Global Sources and any other platforms
that may have suppliers making your type of item.
Request quotes from all the suppliers that
can make your product. This way, you can be sure to have the best initial
pricing. You will also get the best quality product this way too!
Even if you have an existing product
already selling on Amazon – you can reduce the price by negotiating with your
existing supplier or changing suppliers.
Target Price
Give your top 10 suppliers a competitive
target price to hit. E.g. If all the suppliers quote you $4 to $8 for your item
– ask them all if they can do it for $3.20 and see what they say. If they say –
no – and come back at $3.50 you still just saved over 10%!
If your target product sells for around $30
on Amazon, you want to buy it for under $6 to maximize margins. Start with
giving suppliers a target price lower than your optimal buy price.
Suppliers usually have a very large margin
built into the product. They expect to negotiate and might have 10 to 30% added
into the product just to give away as a discount. By giving them a low target
price, a few of the suppliers will come back with much better pricing.
What are some ways you could increase your
profits without spending a lot extra on your Amazon business?
In this article we outline some strategies
to help you increase your net profit.
Improve Your Listing
The better your main image looks, the more
people that will click onto your product and buy it. The same for your other
listing page images.
If your images were taken in a dark room
with your iPhone, it is gonna be really hard to justify a higher price &
people will not trust the item is good quality.
If you invest in high end professional
photos, great copywriting and excellent images for your product – then
customers are going to perceive the same item as higher value.
The same item will look more valuable with
better photos.
The same item will seem better if the
copyrighting helps users see the benefits of your products.
Without changing anything but levelling up
your amazon listing you can potentially increase the value of your product in
customers minds.
What is the reason why a customer will
leave a review? Is it because they had a good experience with the product? A
bad experience?
In this guide we deep dive into some of the
main reasons customers leave reviews.
Great Product!
A large percentage of customers will leave
a review simply because they think that the product is good and they want to
share their positive experience with the product.
These are the type of reviews we want to
get the most of. By not overpromising on the listing, showing accurate photos
and description of the product & working to make the item good quality – we
can gather more good reviews in the long term.
Help Other Buyers!
A major reason for customers leaving
feedback is not for the seller! They want to help other buyers to understand
the product better. They may even have suggestions on how to improve the
product too.
Reviewers know that other people like them
might be considering the product. They point out the good and bad points of the
product so other potential buyers can have a better understanding of the
product.
As a seller, you should read all these
reviews and incorporate the feedback into improving your product over time. By
acting on the suggestions – you will turn more future buyers into happy
customers that leave positive reviews!
Instead of trying to catch up with what is
popular now, look into the future and see what will be popular. There are some
huge trends and shifts happening – making some niches sell a lot more in the
long term.
Even before Covid-19 there was a huge
shifting of people working more remotely and more from home. The Coronavirus
just accelerated an existing trend.
More and more companies were letting people
work at home, work remotely or spend part of the week at a home office.
What other big trends and shifts are taking
place that you could benefit from?
Working From Home
The trend of working at home is not going
to disappear. Yes, many people will go back to working in an office. But,
workers of all types are requesting at least 1 to 5 days a week to work from
home.
If this trend continues, which products do
you think will be popular?
Everything from desks, to computer
accessories have had their sales explode upwards. Instead of going after the
main work at home trend, try to think of complementary products you could sell.
Amazon has recently changed the way it
calculates inventory storage limits. Now the IPI score, Inventory Performance
Index, is the main factor in determining your allowed storage levels.
The IPI score also shows you how your
business is performing on Amazon.
Why is this important?
Excess Inventory
This measures how much extra stock you
have. It serves as a warning light if your product is not selling enough
relative to the stock level.
In the short term, FBA storage fees are not
too expensive. But if a product stays in Amazon over 12 months it gets hit with
Long Term Storage fees which are many times more costly.
This section of the Inventory Dashboard
highlights which SKUs have too much stock and Amazon even calculates how much
it will cost you in storage fees.
It is usually cheaper to store the product
in an FBA prep warehouse than Amazon itself – so pay attention to this and
reduce stock levels so you don’t get hit with big fees!
Why are promotions important? How can they
help you scale your sales & profits? In this article we will cover the top
tips for running promotions on Amazon.
Tip 1 Why Promote
Amazon ranks products firstly by their
relevance using keywords, then it compares the overall sales performance of
similar products.
If you’re on page 2 and don’t get much traffic and it’s hard for you to sell a lot of products, you’re always going to be ranked on page 2. The reason for doing a promotion is to get more traffic for 7 or 10 days and increase your organic sales.
By doing this, your product sales will
increase such that Amazon will put you on page 1. Using a tool like cash cow
pro you can see the exact number of units you need to give away to be able to
rank in the top 10.
Tip 2 Preparing for Promotion
The first thing you need to do before
launching a promotion is to make sure your listing is fully optimized.
There’s no point driving lots of extra traffic to a product if the images are not high resolution and the copywriting is not optimal. Once you’re confident you’ve done everything you can to make a listing as good as possible, the next thing to do is to drop your price just before starting a promotion.
The reason for this is you want to maximize
sales while the boost from a promotion is helping you to rank. The more sales
you can get the more likely it is you will stick to the new higher position.
Just boosting BSR is not the goal: you want
long-term organic sales.
Sometimes you just get stuck with your Amazon business. If you are having a problem or issue – or you are not sure what to do next, we put together this guide on resources you can use.
In this article we cover the top tips for getting help with your Amazon business.
Tip 1 Seller Central
If you have an issue with your listing or account, the fastest way to resolve it is to contact Amazon through the help section in Seller Central.
During normal business hours they are very responsive and can usually fix most issues within a couple of hours. You can also email an Amazon representative and they usually provide a detailed response to your problem within a day or so.
For critical issues, always call the Amazon help desk for sellers.
Tip 2 Amazon Forum
If you have a seller central account you can also ask questions in the Amazon forum.
You may want to bounce ideas around for strategies and determine what is and isn’t acceptable on Amazon by asking your peers in this group. Amazon also monitors the discussion and responds to questions and issues.
This is a good place to get general tips, such as how to find a good supplier.
AMZ Tracker is the best tool for launching new promotions on Amazon.
Every so often, Amazon updates the types of promotions available. In this article we cover the top things you need to know about the different promotions available on Amazon.
Tip 1 Types
If you head over to Advertising > Promotions on the main menu in Seller Central you will be able to see the types of promotion available. The main ones are:
Social Media Code: Create a custom promo code and receive a unique marketing page to share with customers through social media, emails, or influencer marketing.
This is great for sharing with influencers.
Percentage Off Here you can set up promotions with a certain percentage off or set discount.
Buy One Get One This lets you create special offers allowing customers to get a second unit FREE.
Tip 2 Keep it Simple
You can get quite creative with all the different types of promotion available on Amazon.
I recommend keeping it simple to begin with, learning about how promotion works and then increasing your range of offers once you are more experienced and have a larger Amazon catalog of products.
Start with just offering a 5% discount on 1 product. This can show on the Amazon search results with a tag – which will help your product stand out among the competition.
Products with a high review rating sell more, rank higher and have better conversion rates.
Getting reviews on Amazon can be difficult. In this article we cover the top methods for getting reviews for your products on Amazon.
Tip 1 Feedback Emails
What are feedback emails? These are automatic emails that go out to every customer that orders a product from you. This is one of the best ways to get more positive reviews and prevent negative reviews.
Set up an automatic email feedback collection system that sends an email to your customers as soon as their product has been shipped or delivered.
Not every customer will receive your emails, because they are allowed to opt out from receiving seller emails. Usually around 40% of orders will get your email.
Tip 2 Seller Feedback
Push customers to leave seller feedback first. The reason for this is you can remove negative seller feedback that is about the product.
For customers that leave a negative seller review, contact them and resolve their issue. For customers that leave a 5-star seller review, drop them an email thanking them and requesting that they leave you a product review. You can do this automatically by clicking the request review next to the specific order.
Did you know, by just negotiating face to
face with a supplier you could save 10% to 30% or more off your product.
One of the biggest competitive advantages
you can get on Amazon is insider knowledge by visiting your supplier.
In this article we talk about the top
benefits of visiting your suppliers before ordering.
Benefit 1 See How the Product’s Made
By going to the factory and seeing how the
product is actually made, you’ll be able to design a lower cost and better
all-round product because you know more about the production process.
You could also spot potential issues by
watching how the factory makes those kinds of items.
You will understand how to make the product
better quality too. You can instantly see many material options in the
supplier’s warehouse.
Benefit 2 See your Competition’s Products
I’ve been to many factories and seen some
of my competitors’ top-secret products being made.
Also the factory might be selling to over
100 countries around the world. Each customer will have different packaging,
maybe including bundles, and you can use everything you see to improve your own
product.
Imagine being able to see 500 different variations of your potential product all in 1 room. You can take the best ideas used by buyers from other markets and apply it to your design.
WIth Corona, many events and trade shows
have moved online. Do you sell home products? Electronics? There is definitely
an international trade show of suppliers for your niche.
You can learn a huge amount simply from
checking out top suppliers and brands in your market. In this article we’re
covering the top reasons why you should go to trade shows or events – even if
they are online .
5000 Factories
A typical trade show in Hong Kong or China
has between 2000 and 5000 suppliers or more. Each supplier may have 10 to 1000+
products on display or in their catalogue.
You get to see 500,000 products in a single
day. Online events let you browse top manufacturer products. Often products
shown at events are the best or newly developed.
Maybe you found the perfect niche product
to sell – but how can you be sure you can actually get it into Amazon
successfully?
How do you know you have the right supplier
for your new product?
In this article we are going to cover the
top questions you need to ask new suppliers when selling on Amazon.
Question 1 Price
First of all, ask them the price for
different quantities of the product you are considering.
You need to know the price for the MOQ,
which is the minimum order quantity a factory would accept. Some factories
expect you to order 3000 units first time, while others may request that you
spend $2000 on your first order.
It varies from factory to factory so you
need to check the minimum order requirements. At the same time, ask the price
for 5000+ units, so you can see what savings you can make by ordering larger
volumes.
By knowing the prices for small and large
orders upfront you can more accurately estimate your profit margin as your
business scales.
Question 2 Lead Time
Both for the minimum order quantity and
5000 pieces, ask the factory for the normal production lead time.
Usually this is between 2 to 6 weeks for
most products. During busy times of the year the production lead time may
double, so always check with the factory before you place an order.
When planning your launch, always allow
some extra time for manufacturing. The best is to have at least 30 days buffer
built in because sometimes things go wrong – like the recent blockage of the
Suez Canal!
Question 3 Background
Ask all suppliers to send you their
profile, including the size of the factory, how many workers they have, the
machinery they have, their main products, markets and customers they sell to.
Most factories will willingly give you this
information. You need this to evaluate if they are a reputable supplier.
Go through their sales brochure, website,
product catalogue and get an understanding of what other products they could
potentially produce for you. If all their products are very different – e.g.
wood products and plastic products – they might be a trading company and not a
factory.
Question 4 Location
Ask for the detailed factory address in
English and Chinese and Google this. Also ask for their showroom address.
If the showroom address is different from
the factory address you could be dealing with an agent and not the factory
direct. Ask for photos of both the factory and the showroom to see their
production lines and products.
Check the location yourself and try to find
links or references about the factory online. Maybe another seller has used
them before and had issues and posted about it online. It takes 5 mins to check
but could save you thousands by avoiding the wrong suppliers.
Question 5 Other Similar Products
When you contact suppliers, ask them to
send you their catalog.
Ask about similar products to the one you
are looking for and check which materials they can make it in. You might get
some new ideas for products no-one else is selling on Amazon.
Question 6 Branding and Packaging
A factory may have made the same product
for 100 customers around the world.
Each one has their own unique way to brand
the product and package it. So ask the factory for pictures to show how you can
add the logo and to discover the standard packaging they use for it.
This will save you a lot of work. You can
also ask to see other customers packaging, although some factories may refuse
this.
Question 7 Sample Arrangement
In your initial email to suppliers, find
out the cost of a sample and how long it will take to arrange the sample.
I usually request for the sample cost to be
refunded against the main order. This way you get that money and cost back.
Most factories are willing to do this.
These top 7 points cover most of the
questions you need to ask when reaching out to new suppliers.
One of the riskiest steps in launching a
product business is paying suppliers. What if they make a mistake with the
order? What if they are not a real factory?
Follow our top tips to reduce your risk!
Tip 1 Start Small
When you’re first starting out dealing with
overseas suppliers, it may be difficult to spot which ones are great and which
ones are unreliable.
Over time you’ll know almost instantly if a
factory is worth dealing with. When it comes to payments, especially to
international suppliers, there are many scam artists because there’s so much
money involved.
If they persuade you to send them a deposit
and they disappear with the money, just by posting a few listings and a few
emails they could make tens of thousands of dollars. That’s why it’s essential
you verify the background of whoever you’re making payments to.
Try to start with a small order to test
their reliability and quality.
Tips 2 and 3 Background Check
The quickest and fastest way to do a rough
background check is using the following 3 tactics of the ABC method.
Step A: Ask for their full address in
English and Local Language as well as their company name and incorporation
certificate.
Search their company name and later their
address on Google and skim through the results. If the factory claims to be a
silicon specialist but their website has many different kinds of products from
toys to wooden goods, they are probably a trader or someone who has put up a
fake website to try to get business, or even a scammer.
Buy from the experts. If you’re buying a
wooden item only buy from someone who is a specialist in this area. You’ll know
that from their website, their product range and their knowledge when
communicating with you via email.
Avoiding traders and doing a quick check of
the website on Google is a great way to filter out bad suppliers and potential
scammers.
Step B: Ask for references from 3 to 5 customers.
These can be in our countries, such as the
UK, Germany or France. Any serious supplier will have customers across the
globe and should be able to provide you with 3 references. Call or email them
and ask them about their experience with that factory.
Also Google search the brands they give you
as references. If they are mid-market to high-end brands the factory should be
able to produce products to a good standard.
Step C: Visit the factory address or ask your agent to conduct a surprise visit.
I’ve been given factory addresses and when
I showed up it turned out that it was just two guys in an apartment pretending
to be a factory. Before you place any purchase order, you or your
representative should always visit the factory.
Tip 4 Deposit
Normally factories ask for a 30% deposit
when the order is placed and 70% balance payment before shipment.
This is standard across Asia, especially
China and Hong Kong. If the supplier asks for more deposit, be very wary. It’s
hard to get that deposit back if you later cancel the order or if the factory
cannot make the goods to your standard.
They will claim they spent on materials
already, so you’ll never see it again. That’s why you have to do as much due
diligence before placing any orders as possible.
Tip 5 Escrow
One way to minimize payment risk is to use
an escrow service.
The payment from escrow is only released
when the quality of goods has been checked and verified. If possible add to
your contract that a third party inspection done by SGS or Intertek has to be
conducted and passed before the payment is released.
This goes some way to protecting you and
ensuring that your product is in good condition before leaving the factory.
Tip 6 Other Payment Types
Larger businesses use letters of credit or
TT payments for their orders.
A letter of credit is issued by your bank
and tells the supplier’s bank that you have the cash to pay for the order and
that your bank has set it aside, much like a certificate of deposit. The funds
are released to the supplier only when they meet the conditions of the letter
of credit.
Usually this includes passing inspection
and presenting your bank with the shipping documents. This service is very
expensive and your order needs to be $10,000 or more before it make senses to
use this kind of payment.
Most suppliers will refuse a letter of
credit for the first couple of orders because they want to use the cash to buy
the materials. The alternative payment method is to send the deposit by
telegraphic transfer directly to the factory’s bank.
This is the riskiest payment form because
you are transferring the cash directly without any terms attached.
Tip 7 Credit
As you build your relationship with
suppliers, ask for extended payment terms.
Since manufacturing is so capital
intensive, it’s rare for factories to extend lengthy time frames for you to
pay. You might be able to push for payment on delivery into your Amazon
warehouse.
After two or three orders, ask the factory
if you can pay 30 days after delivery. Ask for more than you expect them to
agree to, because if you settle
somewhere in the middle the terms will still be in your favor.
Getting to the top of Amazon is hard if you
are competing for the search traffic on Amazon. But what if you were getting
thousands of visitors a month to your product from outside Amazon?
Sending Influencer Traffic to your listing
can boost sales, profits & conversions. Here is our step by step process
for finding and working with influencers.
Step 1: Who?
Make a list of potential partners on your
chosen platform. For example, if you were going to partner with influencers on
Instagram, you would search for people with profiles & accounts that match
your niche.
Start by looking for small to medium
influencers with around 10,000 to 50,000 followers. These are most likely to
work with you and also they might not ask for much in return for promoting your
product.
