Latest / Talk Commerce / Unlocking Massive Growth Through Marketing Alignment with Josh Gibson
Transcript
- Brent Peterson (00:03.562) Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Josh Gibson with the Sojourn Group. Josh, go ahead, do an introduction. Tell us your day-to-day role and maybe one of your passions in life. Josh Gibson (00:15.466) Fair enough. So Sojourn Group was established around five years ago as a consulting agency. We've been selling for a little over 21 years on marketplace. Amazon, eBay, Newegg, you can go down the long line of marketplaces we sold on. And we realized that the brands we were buying from were moving more and more to being direct to consumer and removing distribution. And in that process, they also didn't have a team with expertise. to go to marketplace. If you sell on Amazon or have sold on Amazon you know it's more than one person. part, even just trying to get payments and or reimbursements back to you. So we came alongside brands about five years ago and help them move from being in distribution or selling first party to being a third party seller on specifically Amazon is the big one. More and more of our clients moving to Walmart as an agency were approved to sell on target. And so we just walk alongside and help them in any way they need from customer service to reimbursements, to PPC, housing, you name it, listing optimization, that's actually the big one we're spending a lot of time on right now. My day-to-day role, I have either the privilege or the downside of running everything. So I have 36 people in the team that cover all the various departments and my job is to help run us forward, let them catch up behind and kind of visionary and client sourcing. Brent Peterson (01:27.831) That's awesome. Brent Peterson (01:49.578) Nice. Passions? Anything passionate about? Josh Gibson (01:54.359) I used to play golf a lot and then I had four kids. So the fashion right now is I try to take as much time as I can, my wife and I, we go camping. We have a big fifth wheel we bring all four kids with and we typically spend 40 to 50 nights a year camping around the US. Brent Peterson (02:10.958) Wow, that's awesome. That's, that's, I mean, your kids are going to just love that. And I know my dad drove me out to, we had to go, we live in Minnesota. So we had to go to the boundary waters a couple of times a year, which is fantastic. No fifth wheelers in the boundary waters, but it was still a great experience as a kid to go camping. Um, Josh, I know that you were, uh, nice enough to volunteer for the free joke project, so I am just before we get into our content, and I think this is a, this is a great topic by the way. Uh, Josh Gibson (02:20.297) Mm-hmm. Brent Peterson (02:40.222) I'm just going to tell you a joke. All you have to do is say, should this joke be free or do you think somebody should charge for it? Here we go. What do you call a factory that makes OK products? A Satisfactory. Josh Gibson (02:55.086) That's a good dad joke. Ummm... I think it's free. Brent Peterson (02:56.363) Yeah. Alright, it could be a sad is factory saddest joke anyways. Alright marketplaces. I just I I've been Talking to a lot of people in market and I noticed too like I know big commerce Just did a partnership with target to get there to kind of get their products in if you have if you have a retailer You're an e-commerce store. You can push your products onto target. Tell us tell us a little bit about that and how some of these Josh Gibson (03:04.293) Yeah, that's good. Brent Peterson (03:28.786) other marketplaces now are kind of moving in to compete against, I'm assuming they're there to compete against Amazon, right? Josh Gibson (03:35.41) Yeah, in one way, shape or form. And so we had, I'll start with Walmart, because I think Walmart's a good case study that bring us to Target, where they bought Jet years ago, because they were trying to get into the marketplace space. We've been working with Walmart for years in various different DSV, drop shipped by vendor, and as a third-party seller, and unfortunately, Walmart. even though the marketplace continues to grow and they're adding more and more people. A lot of Amazonians are actually moving to Walmart right now. It's a marketplace that still has its bumps and bruises and it operates kind of like an Amazon and an eBay clash together and how to... Yeah. Target, though, Target is doing very deliberately and very slowly bringing new sellers on and even getting approved within categories. They've made that quite the process. So we were fortunate enough because we've been with Channel Advisor, one of the advisory board members with Channel Advisor, and they offered us to be able to be a Target seller. So we've gone through that process. It took four to six months to get onboarded. and they've done it very deliberately and they've done a really good job. So to answer your question after that is, yeah, everybody's trying to compete with an Amazon in one way, shape or form. And you're seeing more and more people, specifically after COVID, shopping online versus shopping in store. And there's a lot of people that shop at Target. And if they are able to expand their product selection that they may not sell directly first party. because the brand doesn't want to for whatever reason, but being able to have it on their site because people are target people. They like using the red card, they like getting their rewards, and that's where they shop. And so them being able to open up a larger marketplace with more product makes them a competitor in the space. And so yeah, it will take some sales from Amazon, but as they continue to grow that marketplace out. Brent Peterson (05:38.626) Yeah, and I did meet some of the leadership in Target. And I think that they've been more deliberate in their, in their marketplace and going to market. They haven't, they didn't rush it. Like if anybody knows anything about Target, Target went into Canada and it was never, it was not very successful as a retail, as a brick and mortar. And it feels like they're doing the right thing now with their marketplace. Josh Gibson (05:51.484) Mm-hmm. Josh Gibson (05:57.112) Yep. Josh Gibson (06:05.174) They are, and they won't let anything on there. So even though we're an approved seller, there's a long list of approvals we have to go to, go through to put anything on the site. So it does keep it clean and it makes sure it sticks within their parameters of what they're looking for. Brent Peterson (06:21.646) So tell me as I'm, if I'm a merchant, I wanna get my product on the site. What kind of hoops do you have to go through and then how do you help in that? Josh Gibson (06:35.034) with Target specifically, one, it's an invite only to be a seller on Marketplace. And so I don't know where they're at. We got the invite from Channel Advisor directly, but if you're looking to be a third party seller, I'm unsure honestly of the application and the timeframe. I do know for us, even getting the invite directly from Channel Advisor, it took us about four months to get connected with our account manager. And then to get product on, they ask specific categories, and then they can put you in contact with that category manager. Then they ask for images, UPCs, descriptions, pictures, everything that for us, it'd be nice to point them directly to the manufacturer's website, but they run everything through Excel flat files, and then they vet it that way. And then once you are able to get all those approvals, then they do a test by, make sure everything works, and then you go from there. Brent Peterson (07:40.374) And does that does the process is that similar when you you're looking at? Amazon or Walmart or Target and there's other there's other marketplaces out there as well as in there Josh Gibson (07:51.006) There is. Amazon's becoming more complicated to get established, which is good. They're vetting their new sellers quite well, and even they're gating in closing categories, making it more difficult to be able to sell. But if you have all the proper documentation, you have to jump through the hoops. Walmart was significantly easier. Walmart's kind of, like I said, a mix between Amazon and eBay, but there's a lot of Wild West things still happening in Walmart. But Walmart is a very easy marketplace to sign up for and to sell. Brent Peterson (08:29.75) And you mentioned eBay a couple times. I mean, I think eBay, we all know it's still in existence, but does anybody actually use it anymore? Josh Gibson (08:37.494) They do surprisingly. You have your deal shoppers that are out there looking for deals. It's where we find that we sell a lot of the used or partially damaged product. So if it's as a rub mark or small pieces missing, but it's still functional, we find that a lot of people go to eBay. It's one of those things that if you don't use it, you're gonna miss out on the sales because there are people that shop, but it's not gonna make you rich. And so for us... any of the clients that we bring on directly, we use Channel Advisor, which is a multi-listing platform. And so if it's listed in one place, it's really easy to list it across all marketplaces and eBay specifically, and that one's a really easy bolt on. If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't sell there, it could sell in Walmart. If it doesn't sell in Walmart, it could sell on Amazon. So it's easy to put up and just let it sit. But I do have some colleagues that are incredibly successful on Brent Peterson (09:28.35) If I. Josh Gibson (09:33.802) eBay and I'm unsure how they do it but there it is still a valid marketplace. Brent Peterson (09:39.522) Yeah, I have to say that I did see a commercial for eBay Motors, so I realize that they're still around. Not so much as an auction, but more as a marketplace now. Josh Gibson (09:44.906) Yep, no, they are. Josh Gibson (09:50.062) Correct, yeah. And Auto is actually a really good spot as well because they do have all those, their fitment is pretty good. Brent Peterson (09:56.654) So if I'm a, say I'm a merchant and I have my own store that I'm selling, maybe retail, and I'm also selling online, what is the best, is there a particular type of store owner or vertical that makes perfect sense to go on the marketplace and then is there sometimes merchants that they should just steer clear of all marketplaces and continue to do it through their own channel? Josh Gibson (10:23.666) Um, that's a good question. I would say if you are a brand, you should be on marketplace, uh, cause that is going to be able to bring someone directly, um, directly there. Um, if you're doing arbitrage, um, and you have a good source, I don't see, um, why you wouldn't consider it, but you also have to have a team behind you to make sure that you understand your listings, your inventory, um, make sure that you have a team that can pick back and ship. Um, Like I said, more and more people are shopping online. It's becoming a, I can't really last time I went to the store to buy something, me personally. And so if you don't have something in the digital space, in the marketplace space, you are gonna be missing out on some sales. Brent Peterson (11:08.79) If I may, so you mentioned digital, is it, and I'm assuming all of the marketplaces are different to make sure that the items are actually getting shipped. What sort of things should you look out for as a merchant then if you get onto Amazon and you're not able to meet their... Whatever the requirements are around shipping. I'm assuming that you can become a prime merchant if you guarantee two days shipping something like that Josh Gibson (11:42.978) So that every marketplace has their own metrics in regards to on-time ship rate, on-time delivery rate, and then some even have very specific return rate requirements. So as a seller, there's two ways of doing it. Amazon just announced that they're bringing back seller for Philip Prime, where you as a merchant have to apply for it, then you have to meet certain criteria. and then you can ship from your warehouse or a 3PL warehouse, however you're shipping, with the Prime batch. It gets very expensive, because last I saw it was 20%, you had to have available on the site for next day delivery. Next day, shipping is not cheap. But as a seller, you're able to do FBA, where you're able to stick your product or send things in stickerless and ship it into one of Amazon's fulfillment centers, and then Amazon does... They're fulfilling of that. Once the inventory goes live in FBA, they list it for you, they ship it for you, you pay for it, but that way if you're, that's why a lot of smaller or even mid-sized companies do everything through FBA, because it reduces the logistics and the shipping cost. Brent Peterson (12:56.31) Yeah, and I was going to say, so FBA is fulfilled by Amazon. Do Target and Walmart have that same sort of model? If you're a merchant, you can ship your product to their warehouse and have them fulfill it for you. Josh Gibson (13:06.646) Walmart does, it's called Walmart WFS, Walmart Fulfillment Services. Target, not that I'm aware of yet. So currently it's just Walmart and Amazon. A new egg had a weird program for a while, but I don't think that one's still standing up. Brent Peterson (13:23.806) I know that there was a push at some point for Shopify to do Fulfilled by Shopify and I think it died. I'm not a hundred percent sure but they're trying to make themselves into their own mega marketplace by Knitting together a bunch of merchants or merchants that wanted to participate in the same program or something like that I'm not sure how it worked. But do you see that as a possibility for other? Platforms to kind of come in and try to compete with the really big players Josh Gibson (13:37.771) Okay. Josh Gibson (13:51.71) can you with an Amazon because most everybody is on Amazon you can use your Amazon FBA inventory to fulfill orders through Shopify as well. It's multi-channel fulfillment you can do with eBay and I believe you can do a Target you cannot do with Walmart. Walmart will not let you fulfill your orders for Walmart with Amazon stock. So I think you'll get something like Amazon or Android or Walmart that already have the distribution, that already have the warehousing, that will. then do fulfillment for you to these other platforms. It does get complicated from a storage, logistics standpoint to understand, okay, I have 100 pieces over at Shopify, I have 50 pieces over at Walmart, I have 100 pieces over at Amazon, and tracking all that does, is a little bit of work, but it's something that you can do. Brent Peterson (14:47.07) From a you can do, why would somebody come to Josh to have my products? Why would, why would, why do merchants need to look at third parties like yourself to help them get that stuff going? Josh Gibson (15:00.966) That's a good question. When you sell, we'll stick to Amazon specifically on this one. When you sell on Amazon, there's so many different variables from customer service to all those metrics I was talking about, to reimbursements, to inbound shipments, to pricing, to coupons, to PPC, and or the accounting. The accounting itself is really difficult being able to get the proper data out the way you like it. And listing optimization is one that we kind of are feathering the cap, so to speak, is when you build a listing, it's making sure that you're getting the right content. from the amount of characters you have in your title to the characters you have in your bullets to A plus content to your, are you doing any alt text? Are you, how does your carousel work in regards to cross promoting products? And someone that's coming in from day one may know some of it, but they're not gonna know a breadth of... the information we have. Again, we've been selling for a little over 20 years with 36 people and all we do is marketplace and most of that is in Amazon, but we touch all of them. So when you... When you're coming on, and we've come in and kind of done some train wreck recovery of brands that have gone online and they messed it up in regards to product reviews and or seller reviews and missed metrics or whatever that may be, where we're able to come in and be a bolt on solution, be the partner that helps them because hiring these positions is not cheap and you can't do it with one person. Josh Gibson (16:40.554) You have to have a few on your payroll, and it ends up being significantly cheaper for them to hire us and have the experience that we do. And we do weekly reporting, we spend a significant amount of time on data. And so if you're looking for anything, we visualize as much data as you would want, live reports, live dashboards, both from a financial perspective, a advertising perspective, an inventory perspective, and a sales perspective. And so it becomes something really easy for them to... to move from not selling on Amazon to selling on Amazon and being really successful in a very quick ramp up. Brent Peterson (17:16.426) I know this is quite a few years ago now, my wife had a business that was all around eBay and selling on eBay. And the worry at that time was since there wasn't a lot of competition in that space, if you got stopped, cut off, and I guess PayPal would be the big one who would, you know, hold your money for 180 days or whatever. But if you got cut off from eBay for whatever reason that in your whole business is built around that, you're out of business. So do you recommend that? Josh Gibson (17:33.369) Yep. Brent Peterson (17:46.158) Sellers try as many marketplaces as they can to diversify what they're trying to do Josh Gibson (17:51.638) You can, I mean, it's the long tail, right? So Amazon's gonna be the big one, Walmart's gonna be your second biggest one, depending on your categories, eBay, and then there's some other niche ones. You can, yeah, as long as you have a multi- channel listing ability so you can list across multiple without having to go to each individual site and list. And then you also within Amazon can go international from Canada to Mexico to Japan, Singapore, Germany. So that's a different way of diversifying because payments come in different, there's different legal plays, you get paid out differently. And so the diversification is helpful if you start looking at other countries within Amazon. The reason I say Amazon just because it has such a large breadth. of shoppers. But the diversification is important, but also having someone that's actively managing all your metrics and dealing with any counterfeit or fraud or... Josh Gibson (18:54.894) return reasons. Any of those could kick you off. Any of those could suspend your account. And so as long as you're staying on top of it, the opportunity for suspension is way less. But if you're not paying attention to all the different metrics out there, it's quite easy to miss it and then they can revoke your selling privileges. Brent Peterson (19:16.026) Josh, if you had some advice to give to somebody who's going to, who is now, you know, this might be the end, this might be when you need to get on for getting, getting ready for Black Friday. What would that be to get into a marketplace? Josh Gibson (19:31.498) Find somebody. Find somebody that's done it so that you can get information. There's so many resources out there on YouTube, Google, I mean even if you want to use Bard or ChatGBT to give you some resources, but look into it. Don't go into it naive. Don't go into it thinking it's going to be simple and build a good team around you or find an agency to help you launch well because if you don't launch well... you're gonna miss out on a lot of opportunities. You will still have sales, but you may only be getting your percentage of the sales that you could be getting, and you may be disappointed. Brent Peterson (20:07.158) And is there a risk if you're selling something generic, not a brand, that the platform eventually will come up with its own basic product and start selling the exact same category? Josh Gibson (20:20.358) Amazon's showing they're doing that all the time. Amazon Basic whatever. And unfortunately for the seller is Amazon has all the data. They see every sale that goes through, they see every click, they see everything. And that's why you're starting to see more and more Amazon Basic product out there. I mean, from pencils to paper to, I mean, you name it, it's there. Brent Peterson (20:22.746) Ha ha ha. Brent Peterson (20:42.146) And I've heard some other FDA people say that you should be developing your own brand no matter what it is to ensure that brand is going to be there and not get stolen by everybody or by the platform or by the marketplace, I should say. Josh Gibson (20:47.488) Yes. Josh Gibson (20:58.386) Yep, and if you have the wherewithal, I think building your own brand is incredibly valuable. I mean, we went from a culture years ago where you bought based on brand, now you buy based on where does it land on my page? Do I have to scroll too far and what are the reviews? And so if I ask you the last five brands you bought on Amazon, if you shop on Amazon, you probably don't necessarily know the brand, but you know what you got. Brent Peterson (21:23.61) Yeah, that's such a good point. Josh, as I close out the podcast, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug. You can do a shameless plug about anything you'd like today. What would you like to plug? Josh Gibson (21:35.583) If you sell on Amazon and you're looking for someone to do a review of your listings. reach out, we'll do one listing for free. We don't have to have access to your account, we'll just take the ASIN and we'll give you our recommendations. We use a myriad of tools and we also use a significant amount of AI to get any of your competitor data, the page data, advertising data, to make your listing sit organically and search as high as we possibly can. Brent Peterson (22:06.262) That's awesome. Thanks so much. I'll make sure I put all those all your contact All your contact details in the show notes It was been Josh. It's been a great pleasure to speak to you today And have a wonderful afternoon Josh Gibson (22:13.57) Okay. Josh Gibson (22:21.646) Thank you, you too.