eCommerce Fuel

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog:

Continuing with our series on Amazon, this week we're talking about research tools available to help those selling in niche markets. Greg Mercer, the founder of Jungle Scout, a popular Amazon market research tool for sellers, discusses how sellers can weed out saturated segments to find profits.  Jungle Scout uses Amazon's Best Sellers rankings to help you make educated decisions on what to buy and sell on Amazon. Greg dives in about the pros and cons of developing products vs reselling on the Amazon platform. He also provides an in-depth review of the tools he uses to conduct market research, which helps him to identify products that are in demand. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Greg Mercer of Jungle Scout.) Andrew: Hey guys, it's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. And today we're continuing on with our podcast series about Amazon. Specifically, we're gonna be talking about niche research today in 2016. A lot has changed over the last couple of years, but we wanna find out what's working, what you should be thinking about if you're gonna be launching a product or products on the platform today. And joining me to talk about this is Greg Mercer who is the founder of Jungle Scout which is extremely popular market analysis and research tool for Amazon. It lets you go in and you can see, you know, really it gives you like a sense how much revenue certain products are making on Amazon as well as a slew of other information. And Greg's got a lot of experience working with Amazon, running his own Amazon business, and understands the analytics and the market research side extremely well. So hope you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun chatting with Greg about this as I'm a bit of a Amazon newbie myself, and hope you find it useful as well. We'll get right into it. Greg, great to have you on. Thanks for coming. Greg: Absolutely, I appreciate you having me on, Andrew. What is Jungle Scout? Andrew: For those that may not be familiar with you, can you give us a quick overview of what Jungle Scout, which is kind of your primary product, what it is and how it works? Greg: Yeah, absolutely. So it's before that you know, like just a few years ago, I used to work in a corporate job. I wasn't really happy with it. I escaped that by starting to sell on Amazon. That kind of led into Jungle Scout which is a product research tool for Amazon sellers, so it's a software product. And what we've done with this, we've gathered a whole bunch of data, analyzed different data points, and so forth to help sellers make educated purchasing decisions, and I help them find good products to sell on Amazon. Andrew: And the data, so you can actually go to a product, press the button and then it will give you a bunch of data, but included in that is the number that are sold per month as a well as the revenue generated by that product for the seller, correct? Greg: Yes, that's correct. So that's a little bit of like our secret sauce is the sales estimate. And a lot of your listeners probably know Amazon doesn't personally release that data. What they do release is something they call a Best Sellers Rank, and from that we've developed algorithms by tracking a few hundred thousand different products on how that Best Sellers Rank correlates to the unit sales on a monthly basis, We've developed those algorithms, we update them each month, and from there, you can get pretty darn accurate estimates of how much any product sells on Amazon. Using Spitly and Review Kick Andrew: And you also have a couple of other things as well, Splitly and Review Kick. Can you just touch briefly on what both of those are? Greg: Yeah. Sure thing. So Review Kick is a review acquisition management platform. So if you're looking to get reviews on your Amazon produc...

Direct download: EP160ECOMMERCEFUEL.mp3
Category:Case Studies -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog:

One of the most crucial factors to having a successful product on Amazon is the quality of your customer reviews. This week, Jeffrey Cohen, Director of Business Development at SellerLabs, joins us to explain how to garner better reviews for your products and the strategies to create incentivized reviews. Jeff also shares up-to-date tools that bring organic reviews to your product listings and can boost the number of reviews your products get.  Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Jeffrey Cohen of SellerLabs) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel Podcast. The show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur Andrew Youderian. Hey guys. It's Andrew here, and welcome to the eCommerce Fuel Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me on the episode. Today, we're gonna be continuing our series on Amazon, and specifically talking about reviews. You know, getting reviews, how they impact, you know, the search algorithm, how important they are, some of the implications behind incentivized reviews. All this kind of stuff we'll be tackling today. And joining me to talk about it is Jeff Cohen from Seller Labs, and you may not have heard of Seller Labs, but there's a good chance you've heard of the products that they put out. Their most popular one is called Feedback Genius, and it's a tool that allows you to affectively set up automated email campaigns to communicate with your Amazon customers. I get feedback from 'em and drive reviews to Amazon. They also run a site called Snagshout, where they help facilitate getting reviews for your products on Amazon through, a lot of times, giving away products or discounting products, things like that. So those are the two businesses that Jeff is involved with. He knows a tremendous amount about Amazon, but particularly, how reviews impact everything. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into my chat with Jeff about reviews on Amazon. I think its interesting understanding Vine a little bit better now. You know, there's been a lot of press about non-legitimate, like paid reviews, which is against Amazon's terms of service. I know, you know, about Snagshout totally doesn't plan those at all. But it'll be interesting knowing that Amazon is very heavily in creating reviews through free products as well. I didn't know that they were so entrenched in that, especially with only offering it to people who sold directly to them. All that being said, what are Amazon's terms of service about generating reviews in terms of payments, giveaways? What can you do, what can't you do? Generating Reviews for Payment or Giveaways Jeff: Yeah, so here's kind of the easiest way to say it. Amazon allows you to sell products at a discount. Amazon allows you to give products away for free. Amazon does not allow you to sell products at a discount, or give them away for free, and require a review. You can encourage your review, but you cannot require it. And so Snagshout does not require a review when the product is given away. But we do ask our buyers to leave reviews once the product has been received, and so it is semantics. But it does make a big difference, and so what Amazon is going after are sites. So there are some sites out there who will say, "Our reviewers understand their obligation to leave reviews." Well, your buyer cannot have an obligation to leave a review. They cannot be provided an incentive to leave a review. You cannot provide the product to a family member, and ask them for review. And you cannot sell a product, never ship a product, and then have somebody write a review. And those are the main things Amazon has been going after. So Fiverr, there were literally people on Fiverr who were running deals,

Direct download: EP159ECOMMERCEFUEL.mp3
Category:Lifestyle & Growth -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog:

Fahim Naim is a former Senior Category Manager at Amazon and founder of eShopportunity. Over the course of his time at Amazon, Fahim did P&L management for a multi-hundred million dollar category, managed relationships with vendors, and negotiated terms and costs with vendors and his team. We take a deep dive into the ways to make your Amazon listings fully optimized, as well as the common mistakes sellers make using Amazon's platform. If you are an Amazon seller, you definitely don't want to miss the vendor advice that Fahim has to offer. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Fahim Naim of eShopportunity) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow ecommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey guys. It's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Today on the show I'm joined by Fahim Naim who is the cofounder of eShopportunity.com and a previous category manager at Amazon. So Fahim's got a ton of experience in this space with Amazon. We will talk about Amazon mistakes which was originally the intended focus of this discussion but we branched out a lot more. Particularly of interest to myself was the difference between FBA, Vendor Central, Vendor Express, how to negotiate with Amazon if they're buying product directly from you, which model, selling to third party or first party makes the most sense in different circumstances. So interesting discussion. I hope you enjoy it. But first, before we dive in, I want to do something I haven't done in quite a while and that is do a first sale shout out. I'm really excited to do this one for Laura Serino who...if the name sounds familiar it's because she's our community manager, she's the podcast producer here. I'm sure you've heard her or one of her episodes she's produced here on the show. So Laura, congrats on the first sale and her business is nhislandapothecary.com. Laura's been into the natural skin care space for quite a while and she's created her own proprietary line of skin care products with a little bit of island flare mixed in there. She lives on an island in Maine. So help Laura ramp up her business enough to where she can quit her job with eCommerceFuel. Check out nhislandapothecary.com. If that ever happens I'll be very sad to lose such an incredibly team member but thrilled for her and her business but yeah. So regardless, check it out, congrats to Laura and with that being said, let's go ahead and get in to today's episode with Fahim. So Fahim, before eShopportunity you actually worked at Amazon. What was your role there? Fahim's Amazon Background Fahim: I was a category manager. Managed one of the largest categories on the retail side of Amazon. Andrew: And what does that mean, to be a category manager? Fahim: Manage the first party so the direct part of the business. Anything that you would sell wholesale to Amazon. I was in the consumer electronics world under the PC components and peripherals part of Amazon. So essentially, manage all relationships with vendors, pricing, marketing, P&L ownership, forecasting, etc. Andrew: Do you miss it and why did you leave? Fahim: I do miss it although my consulting role and agency helps us stay in the game. The major reason I left was to move to San Francisco because of my wife who had to transfer for her work. At the same time, while everything was going well and could've happily stayed at Amazon, wanted to get out and do my own thing and get my skin in the game a little bit. So found a perfect balance with coming down to Bay Area, staying in the ecommerce space and still talking about going on Amazon as well as overall ecommerce. Andrew: Yeah,

Direct download: EP158ECOMMERCEFUEL.mp3
Category:Lifestyle & Growth -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog:

Amazon and the eCommerce merchant. It's a Shakespearean tale where love and hate is often a blurred line. There's no doubt that for many merchants, Amazon is a huge source of revenue for their product. But there's also plenty of pitfalls when you decide to sell on Amazon. To kick off our month-long series about all things Amazon, we've got a reality check about the potential problems with selling on Amazon. While it presents many opportunities for increasing your products' reach, it's important to be aware of the company's policies that have undermined many eCommerce businesses. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of Rebel CEO) Andrew: Hey guys, Andrew here and a quick note before we get into that official theme music. Today is going to kick off a four part month-long series on Amazon. If you're in eCommerce, which you probably are, obviously that's a huge aspect of what we're doing these days. So over the next month we'll be covering all sorts of different topics Amazon-related, and I want to kick off this series with just an episode just to make you think a little bit more carefully about some of the things you should be considering from a downfall perspective on Amazon. Obviously a lot of opportunity there, but given when we're focusing on it and given the fact that some people make Amazon sound like, you know, just a money machine, I wanted to kind of have a reality check to launch us into this series. So hope it's useful, hope you make a bunch of money on Amazon, and hope you enjoy. Thanks. Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey guys, it's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Today, talking about the dangers of Amazon and the FBA business model. You know, Amazon is the talked-about game in eCommerce these days. Big courses coming out, you know money seemingly just falling freely from the skies, it's incredible, right? It's like the old, old days of AdWords when they were three cents a click. There's no downside! But there definitely are some pitfalls that we want to talk about today as a reality check, hat tip to David Heacock for the inspiration and some of the finer points on this episode. Thank you, David. And joining me to really dive into it, a man who knows a ton about Amazon, Mr. Bill D'Alessandro. Bill, welcome sir. Bill: Yup! Glad to be here. This is the topic I love to talk about. Andrew: Yeah, it's interesting, and you've been on, like I said, I mean you've been on Amazon for years. I have very little experience with it. It'll be interesting to kind of take the opposite approach of what I think has been a lot of ra-ra-ra cheering over the last, you know, two years or so. Bill: Yeah, and some of it well-deserved, but not without potential other sides of the coin. Beware the Hijacked Niches Andrew: Bill, I think the biggest thing that stands out as a potential danger of going onto Amazon is that building your core business on Amazon is, ultimately, is going to lead to heartbreak. A lot of people, I'm not sure if they realize, Amazon is not your friend at all. They've got a long track record of hijacking niches, of selling directly out from under merchants, and if you don't own the platform off Amazon somewhere, you're gonna get hosed eventually. Bill: Yeah, I think talk to anybody who used to sell any of the products now covered under the Amazon Basics program. You know, all the cables, all the SD cards, you know Amazon is more than willing to private-label their own stuff and compete with you directly, you know, obviously at much lower cost and with preferential algorithmic ra...

Direct download: EP157ECOMMERCEFUEL.mp3
Category:Lifestyle & Growth -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog:

It's been eight years since Right Channel Radios first opened its eCommerce doors. After a cart migration, major website overhaul and lots of lessons learned over the years, the business has officially been sold. Today we're talking about the biggest takeaways Drew and Andrew walked away with after selling eCommerce businesses. It takes more planning, strategizing and moments of doubt than one might think. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Drew Sanocki of Nerdmarketing.com) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey guys, it's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, thanks so much for tuning in today. Joined by Mr. Drew Sanocki, the man from New York City consultant and business owner extraordinaire. Drew, how are you doing buddy? Drew: Good, how are you doing? Andrew: Good, I was looking at Nerd Marketing and things are looking sharp over there man, you've got a pretty beautiful brand and site with some awesome content. Drew: It's getting there. I read some book on design for founders, I think it's called "Design for Founders," taught me a lot about typography which I got into, you can sink a lot of time into that but I love it now, it's really interesting, I recommend it for anybody who is looking to brand a site or a blog. Andrew: Yeah, it looks super sharp, I was jotting a bunch of notes down and stuff that I'm totally going to swipe for the eCommerceFuel site, yeah it looks sharp man. Drew: Oh fun, good. Andrew: But yeah, today talking about some kind of crazy, crazy news. I sold the business. Drew: I know. Congratulations. Andrew: Yeah thank you. Sold Right Channel Radios which is the business I've had for, man, I guess where it all started back in 2008 so owned it for eight years and just this last couple of weeks ended up closing on the sale. Drew: So is this the first official announcement? Andrew: Publicly it is, I've been chatting with people in the community about it, the private community but in terms of public announcement, yeah, this is where it's getting broken. Drew: Well that's great, well congratulations, this is your second exit. Andrew: Yeah. Drew: Isn't it? Andrew: Yeah, thank you, this is my second one, sold TrollingMotors.net a couple of years ago and this is number two. Drew: That's great, got all sorts of questions for you. Andrew: Yeah, hit me man, it's kind of strange doing a podcast about selling your own business but you were kind enough to come on and help me do it so it wasn't just me talking to people. Drew: Well I'm happy to be here, I sold my first business, it seems like ancient history now, but back in 2011, 2012. Andrew: Yeah, Design Public, right? Drew: Yup and then we sold a business where I was the CMO, Karmaloop, we sold that about a month ago. Andrew: You're partnered up with a private equity group for that, right? Drew: Yes, I mean they did the deal, I did the diligence on the deal, came on board, helped return the company to profitability and we sold, they made most of the money off of the deal unfortunately, but yeah. Andrew: Probably it's safe to say they probably brought most of the money to the deal, right? Drew: Yeah, I was a mere pawn. Andrew: Yeah so I thought it would be kind of fun to just kind of talk quickly about why I sold, who I sold it to and then get into some lessons, both kind of some lessons I learned from the sale and also get your kind of thoughts on it. Drew: Sounds good. Long-Term Prepping Before Putting Up a "For Sale" Sign Andrew: So probably the biggest takeaway for me, and this is something I realized after the fact,

Direct download: EP156ECOMMERCEFUEL.mp3
Category:Buying & Selling Stores -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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