Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Strategies for Your Amazon Business Success with Steven Pope

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Strategies for Your Amazon Business Success with Steven Pope · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  3, 2, 1, 0, ignition.
• 0:01
  Lift off.
• 0:09
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number 1 small business expert, Melinda
• 0:17
  Emerson.
• 0:18
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need succeed and live the life you dream of.
• 0:26
  Now here's your host, the small Biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the Small Bushed podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time.
• 0:38
  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:45
  And just 20 minutes or so a week you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
• 0:52
  business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the small beachhead podcast today.
• 0:58
  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest, Steven Pope.
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  He is the founder of my Amazon guy dotcom, which is a marketing agency, managing more than
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  300 active brand.
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  He is a best selling author of his book, Amazon selling tips, which, by the way, made the top
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  list all over Amazon.
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  He also has he started his career as a TV news producer in Idaho, and then was an e commerce
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  director for over 10 years for brands from gold and silver coins to women's plus size clothing.
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  He has created my Amazon guy, and his agency has 300 plus employees And they are all about
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  growing traffic and sales on Amazon.
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  He also owns my refund guy, my warehouse guy, and 4 other Amazon brands.
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  His YouTube channel is what he is most known for, and he's had millions of views on his more
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  than 1500 videos he shares on all things Amazon.
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  So I wanna welcome you, Steven, to the small business chat podcast.
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  Thanks for having me on.
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  Oh, gosh.
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  I'm excited to talk to you because I'm like, dude, how did you become like the Amazon guy?
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  Right?
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  Tell me about that?
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  Well, the wife and I were in the laundry room one day and and I decided I was gonna start a
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  company and she said, well, how do people normally introduce you?
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  And I'm they don't really care who I am.
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  They just say go talk to my Amazon guy, and then she looked at me and I looked at her, and
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  I was like, okay.
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  That's the name.
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  But, yeah, I've been selling on the Amazon platform for a decade and it's definitely not
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  passive income.
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  It's very difficult to sell on Amazon.
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  What the buyer experiences is seamless but what the seller goes through to make that happen is
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  very complicated.
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  Alright.
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  So what factors should you
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  consider when you're deciding even what products to sell on Amazon?
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  I personally think you should stick to what you know.
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  A lot of people out there are data wizards, and they can go in and look at hot trending
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  subjects and other products like that.
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  I personally, I think it's better to stick the products you understand.
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  So if you're a dentist and you sell some sort of, bamboo, dental floss, you're probably gonna
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  have an edge you're a chemist and you make the next supplement to increase testosterone,
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  you're probably gonna have a better chance of success versus the next guy who doesn't have
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  that association or understanding.
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  So when you stick to the products you stand your your your the customer avatar.
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  You have an edge.
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  You have an understanding of of how to how to cope with all the ups and downs of
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  entrepreneurship.
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  As you all know, running a small business every single day is very difficult.
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  So having an edge, a decade of experience using a product, selling a product prior to even
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  trying to launch or source or manufacture it, it's gonna be a long advantage when you're
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  selling on amazon.com.
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  I believe you.
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  So let's talk about all of the stuff that Amazon will put you through to sell on their
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  platforms.
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  To talk about like their seller policies and guidelines and fee structures and how, you
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  know, how does one learn to navigate all this stuff?
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  Trial and error, and you have to pay your tax.
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  Right?
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  There's no 4 year college degree to go learn how to sell on Amazon.
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  And even if you are the most educated PhD person, you study every help file Amazon has
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  ever put out there, I pretty much guarantee you you're going to make 1000 of dollars in
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  mistakes in your 1st year selling on Amazon.
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  Obviously, as an agency, I'm biased, come hire me, whatever.
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  But just navigating all that information, this is what has been kind of a core to my business.
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  I like to joke that I run an education company that happens to be an agency.
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  And so the way that we've gone about doing this is just simply seeing what's happening on
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  accounts in real time We post videos about how and, it impacts people and and what's going on
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  with that.
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  But there's a lot of places you can learn.
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  You can learn directly from from Amazon.
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  You can learn from, would be Amazon gurus like me posting things on YouTube.
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  But at the end of the day, no matter how much learning you do in advance before you launch
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  your first product on Amazon.
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  I just guarantee you you're gonna make 1000 of dollars of mistakes.
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  So you really need to embrace the fact that you're gonna have to pad for mistakes.
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  So if you think you're gonna have a 30% net margin in your 1st year, let me tell you 20% of
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  that is gonna be eaten in mistakes.
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  So be prepared to pay your tax when selling on Amazon.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  I I love straight talk, small business advice.
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  Alright.
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  So talk to me about what is your process to conduct your market research and competitive
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  analysis on Amazon.
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  Like, how is how are you?
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  Because Amazon is famous for not giving updates.
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  So tell me, How can you even do this effectively?
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  In 2024, surprisingly, we actually have pretty much all of the data available on Amazon.
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  We know what product sells for how much, how often, how many units are churning.
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  We know who the sellers are.
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  We can trace where the source of that inventory is coming from.
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  There's all kinds of data and tools out there.
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  And and so in reality, there's too much data.
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  And so a lot of time, data paralysis occurs when trying to figure that out.
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  But if you're you're in your living room right now, you're doing the 9 to 5 job and you're
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  thinking yourself how do I get out of this?
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  How do I start my own business or my own company?
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  The reason why Amazon is attractive is because it's the greatest transfer of wealth in my
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  lifetime between somebody who has no no millionaire background, no inheritance,
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  whatever, and being able to create millionaires on the amazon.com platform.
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  So that's why people are doing it.
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  And if you're trying to figure out, like, how to you know, just the size for between the
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  datasets and what to trust.
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  At the end of the day, I I I really think people have to get back to their roots and
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  understanding what they know.
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  So if you're trying to decide between whether I I attach myself to that fidget spinner, which
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  was hot 5, 6 years ago, you're gonna be caught off guard and you're gonna be end up selling
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  the same exact product everybody else is if you just pay attention to trends and just look at
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  the data So stick to what you know when you're trying to go about that.
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  Don't get stuck in data paralysis.
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  Alright.
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  So let's about sourcing products, where where, you know, I once had a a expert tell me you
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  make your money when you buy your products, not when you sell in.
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  So What are some of your best resources for sourcing products for selling on Amazon?
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  First time sellers, probably Alibaba, more advanced sellers are gonna make a trip over to
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  China, and they're gonna go visit manufacturer facilities directly.
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  I've been to and and I've been to the big summit, the buildings there are gigantic.
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  We're talking like 6 football fields in size of buildings all connected to each other.
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  1000 of merchants hocking their goods.
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  I've been to that.
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  I I don't think that's where I would go again.
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  I would go directly to manufacturers.
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  So establishing 1 to 1 peer direct relationships to the source of an item.
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  And the reason for that is because if you don't do it that way, you might end up working with a
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  broker who's gonna take that extra 5 or 10 percent off the top just like you were
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  mentioning, when you make your purchases when you make your profit.
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  And so if you can't get your cost of good down, your COGS down as much as possible, then it
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  won't matter how much marketing dollars you spend or don't spend.
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  The profits just won't be there.
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  And and in today's age, Chinese manufactured goods is still the best practice.
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  Yeah.
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  Their costs are still the lowest.
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  Their knowledge on how to make things is still the best.
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  I hope one day that changes, and I hope we bring it back to the states, and I hope we, you
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  know, fix manufacturing.
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  But I've made, multimillion dollar mistakes myself trying to manufacture goods in the
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  United States.
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  It's just really difficult.
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  I started a holster brand called Holsted.
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  We tried to manufacture holsters directly in the North Carolina area.
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  And I gotta tell you it was a disaster.
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  I couldn't compete with the Chinese made products.
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  Americans, even though they might have a little bit of patriotism, just simply did not care to
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  buy an American made product at a premium in this category.
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  So at the end of the day, Alibaba best place to start if you're a first time seller.
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  Good advice.
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  Good advice.
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  Alright.
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  So let's talk about pricing strategy.
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  Right?
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  Because if you're selling on Amazon, Amazon can get you 3 different ways to give them money on
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  one sale.
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  Right?
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  So can you talk to me about how can you build your pricing strategy so that you take into
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  account your competition, but that you actually make a profit with every sale.
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  I like to ignore my competition as much as possible, which is not something you'll hear a
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  lot of experts say.
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  A lot of experts are like paying super close attention to them.
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  But I find that if you just focus on your customer, ask a customer, what do you want?
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  Give it to them and then ask, did you get what you wanted?
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  That's the best way to build any business ever.
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  And if you try and and and follow the comp competitor on pricing, if you win on price
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  today, you'll probably lose on price tomorrow realistically.
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  And you can't beat the Chinese on price.
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  If you're an American made business, American owned business uses Chinese, manufacturing,
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  you're gonna be competing against other products that have a lower price.
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  So your best option is to out market them and build a brand just like GoPro did when they had
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  all of their, videos they put out about how you can GoPro Right?
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  And it's a very aspirational type brand with a lot of, baggage that comes with the aspiration
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  of getting outside.
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  So when you go to build your brand, you can't just simply have a commodity item.
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  You can't just simply sell a chef knife and expect it to work.
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  Because when it comes to commodities, you'll lose on price.
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  So you gotta build a brand.
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  Love it.
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  I love that advice because that is advice that I get people.
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  What you wanna be is a brand in demand.
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  So I love that advice.
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  Alright.
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  So tell us about Amazon fulfillment services versus, you know, putting the package in the in
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  the, you know, in the in the, what is it, the envelope yourself and shipping it.
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  Like, you know, talk about the pros and cons of that.
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  Alright.
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  So FBA fulfilled by Amazon gets you that nice nifty prime badge on Amazon.
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  And it will triple your sales, which is really important when you're first starting out.
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  So it's critical.
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  A lot of items don't do very well at FBA, big items, bulky items, heavy items, stuff like
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  that, and you might have to ship it out of a warehouse but the nice thing about FBA is that
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  Amazon has solved logistics.
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  Amazon is a marketplace, but more so than that, they're a logistics company.
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  They figured out how to get stuff from point a to point b as fast as possible.
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  We all love our 2 day shipping prime.
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  Well, now it's one day prime.
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  Now it's same day prime.
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  Oh, is that too slow free?
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  Okay.
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  2 hour delivery.
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  No problem.
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  Like, that's what Amazon has pulled off as a logistics company.
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  It's pretty amazing.
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  One mistake that I made though was trusting FBA too much.
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  This is a hot sauce bottle that I personally launched on the Amazon platform.
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  It's a five pound glass bottle.
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  I paid Amazon to do the prep work for this.
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  That was my biggest mistake.
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  They did the bubble wrap.
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  Everything was going well so far.
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  They threw on the sticker and then they put it on the shelf.
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  Well, then when they went to pull it to ship it to the consumer, they shipped it out in
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  freaking padded envelopes.
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  And padded envelopes with glass bottles.
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  As you can imagine what happened next, there was shards everywhere.
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  Glass sauce You name it.
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  All over the mail, all over the envelopes.
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  The consumers that bought my product were not happy campers.
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  It was a big, big problem.
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  So you have to ship your items pre boxed, ready to go directly to the consumer before it gets
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  to Amazon FBA, and that is the tax I had to pay to learn how to sell on Amazon.
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  I think that is a really good story.
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  I'm glad you told it, and I could just smell the barbecue sauce in my mailbox screaming.
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  Right?
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  You know, that sounds horrible.
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  Right?
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  You get the you get the product right, and then it just goes to crap after that.
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  You know, the logistics doesn't work.
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  And then and then they kill you in the reviews on top of it.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  Speaking of reviews.
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  Right?
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  So If if Amazon is handling this shipment and Amazon, you're buying it through Amazon, how do
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  you ethically solicit review?
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  I've seen people try to bribe people for reviews, and I know that's against Amazon's
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  policy.
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  But tell me about how you get that review if Amazon is really the provider and not you.
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  Right?
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  It's not like Amazon's giving you an email as everybody shipped a product to for you.
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  So how do you do it?
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  You don't.
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  You get sales, and that's it.
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  Amazon is a marketplace that doesn't give you any access to consumer data and no ability to
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  market and talk to those consumers.
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  So because of that, you can't generate reviews with any actions you take.
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  There are people who have tried to use product inserts, unethically sending mailers following
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  the shipments, offering discounts if they post a picture, but all of those companies will not
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  be in business for much longer.
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  Amazon has cracked down on any review generation that offers incentives They've made
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  very clear strides about cracking down on this.
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  Unfortunately, a lot of the Chinese owned companies, they they just open up a dozen
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  accounts and they skirted as much as possible and try and work around the system.
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  And that happens.
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  So a lot of times the white hat small business owner in the United States It's a very
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  difficult ride to try and go through that, especially when you're first launching that
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  product and that first review comes in and it's one star and you're like, my entire livelihood
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  is right here.
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  In these stars.
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  But at the end of the day, 1 out of a 100 customers will typically leave a review.
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  And so with that in mind, if you wanna get 10 reviews, You gotta go generate a 1000 orders.
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  I love it.
• 15:06
  I love it.
• 15:07
  Listen.
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  When we come right back on the small business podcast, We're gonna talk about how do you
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  generate traffic and sales on Amazon?
• 15:14
  You're staying with us.
• 15:15
  We'll be right back.
• 15:17
  Hi.
• 15:17
  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I wanna welcome you to smallbizladyacademy.com.
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  Whether you're just starting out or ready to grow, we've got everything you need to succeed
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  Join our vibrant community of like minded entrepreneurs today and take your business to
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  Visit smallbizladyacademy.com and start your journey.
• 15:55
  Welcome back to the small biz chat podcast.
• 15:57
  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, your host, and I'm talking with Steven Publ.
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  We're talking about all things Amazon.
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  Alright, Steven.
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  Tell me, how do you drive traffic in sales on Amazon.
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  Like, I know it's like a captain obvious question, but I don't think it really is.
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  Just because they got traffic doesn't mean their traffic coming to you.
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  So talk to us about how we actually get customers on Amazon.
• 16:23
  My favorite two ways to get traffic are SEO and PPC search engine optimization.
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  This is where you're gonna put copy into the listing.
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  You're gonna put it into the code of the listing in in search terms or alt text of the
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  photos, making sure there's crawlable text on the listing.
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  The second is PPC or pay per click advertising, this is the pay to win sort of aspect to get to
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  the top of the search results.
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  And Amazon is making a killing on ads these days they actually make more money from sellers
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  on advertising than they do on AWS in 2024.
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  That gives you some perspective how popular driving traffic on Amazon is SEO and PPC,
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  though, are the ways to go.
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  That is extraordinary because AWS, they're minting money in the basement.
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  So you're telling me that they are beating leasing sellers because now you gotta buy ads
• 17:16
  on Amazon?
• 17:16
  Great.
• 17:17
  Alright.
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  And there's a lot of damn ads on Amazon.
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  I know.
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  I know because I'm a heavy Amazon user.
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  Alright.
• 17:24
  Tell us, how do you really track and analyze your performance metrics on Amazon?
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  What is the best way to do that?
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  There's a lot of metrics you could look at.
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  Top line sales with the revenue.
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  Everybody's pulling out their cell phone and showing their their their sales for the day.
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  And a lot of people like to track and look at that.
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  I'm gonna pull mine up right now and and everybody's got their seller app where they're
• 17:46
  looking at what the sales have been for today.
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  But the other ones that I look at traffic keyword rankings, conversion rates and CTR,
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  there's there's my little chart for the day today.
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  And and a lot of people are are posting screenshots of that on social media and you'll
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  see the YouTube thumbnails with all the gurus showing that.
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  So everybody's about top line.
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  But in reality, profit is really where people should focus more time and attention because
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  you could be a $1,000,000 seller, but if you don't have a 15% profit, you might as well go
• 18:16
  take that 9 to 5 job back and work on, work on corporate America.
• 18:21
  Wow.
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  I think you really said a whole lot right there.
• 18:24
  Alright.
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  Last question, Steven.
• 18:27
  What is the best business advice that you have ever been given?
• 18:32
  You need to have thinking time.
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  One of my favorite things I do is get away from the office, sit on a chair on the beach, or
• 18:40
  walk on the beach, and just have time to think.
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  Most of my mistakes generally come from large 123bigmistakes in my life where I spent
• 18:51
  $2,000,000 trying to build a software when I'm an agency or other big events like that, and
• 18:57
  I've tried to go outside of my sector of intelligence.
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  And so I gotta stick to my zone of genius.
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  So thinking time, just having time scheduled where you only think is the best advice that
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  ever ever have received.
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  I love it.
• 19:11
  I love it.
• 19:12
  Steven, thank you so much for being here.
• 19:14
  My Amazon guy.
• 19:15
  I think you might just be coming that guy for me.
• 19:17
  Anyway, alright.
• 19:24
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 19:28
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday for more
• 19:34
  fantastic information and interviews.
• 19:36
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 19:41
  website succeed as your own boss.com.
• 19:44
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.