058: Tactic Tuesdays: Amazon Accelerator & New Amazon Releases

Transcript

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Welcome everyone to Brand Fortress HQ podcast.

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Another Tactics Tuesday.

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We are live on LinkedIn, so anybody has any questions, feel free to put them in the chat.

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We'd love to tackle them there.

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And today we're really excited to talk about Amazon Accelerate.

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So the show just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago.

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This is Amazon's biggest show for sellers, where they talk about kind of all the new things that they're launching and what's changing on the platform.

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Matt went to the show, so I'm going to pass it over to Matt and tell us about some of the things at Accelerate that really perched your ears up and you think that listeners need to be aware of.

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So first off, to preface, all of this.

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Most Amazon conferences I have been to as a service provider, whether it be like behind a booth or going there just as kind of a suitcase brand trying to just drum up business, talking to sellers and other service providers.

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Amazon Accelerate is the only conference that I've gone to and this is the second time that I've gone to as an actual seller, which I identify more as a seller than I do a service provider anyways.

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But you know, over there was some.

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There was about three major themes at this conference, but what I will say that is very specific to Amazon Accelerate and I heard several stories that corroborated this both this year and last year that really the biggest benefit, in my opinion, of Amazon Accelerate in addition to all of the updates that Amazon tells you about and then the networking is being able to sit face-to-face with a seller support specialist.

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Basically, I think they call them subject matter experts.

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Not only are they English speaking, not only do they know what the heck is going on with the Amazon platform, but they have their laptop and they can actually fix things for you, and I've heard stories of brands that had been dealing with problems for six to eight months and it took a five minute conversation with one of these subject matter experts that resolved their issue within a span of a couple of minutes.

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I talked to a brand owner that flew to Seattle from the UK His account.

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He was a eight figure seller and his account was shut down and it had probably three months earlier than that Three months before the show.

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His account was shut down, he wasn't doing anything wrong and he couldn't get anybody to help him.

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So he flew to Seattle.

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He went to Amazon headquarters first and just tried knocking on doors and that didn't get him anywhere.

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Then he decided to go over to the Accelerate conference and, after talking to a couple of people in booths that weren't helpful, he actually accidentally ran into some sort of account health support table or booth and within just a couple of minutes his account was turned back on and, like I said, I heard dozens and dozens of stories of similar.

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Now it's great that we have a conference that we can go to, to where that can happen, but for me it's a little frustrating to know that Amazon has proven that they have employees there that actually know what the platform does and how to fix issues and have the power to fix issues.

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But you have to go to Seattle once a year to actually get things done.

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So that's the first off and foremost that are very specific about the Accelerate conference.

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I would say, before you move on, I would say I can absolutely corroborate that not from my own experience because I haven't been to Accelerate, but I do also know a number of sellers that have indicated exactly the same thing that they went to the Accelerate conference specifically because they had heard that this was true and they also got issues resolved that they had been working on for many, many months and couldn't get resolved, and within you know minutes they had those issues taken care of.

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And I would reiterate just what you said that whole idea that it is possible to get these issues resolved.

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If you can just speak with somebody who actually has half a brain and knows how the system operates and can get to the thing that needs to be adjusted, you know the fact that that exists, but that there is no other feasible way to get to that person other than going to Amazon.

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Accelerate is absolutely ridiculous, but it is what it is, agreed.

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Agreed, agreed.

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Well, in fact, I mean that is one of the most popular.

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So they have a whole section of the conference or at least you know when I've gone in the past where I mean essentially they have an entire ballroom set aside with Amazon support agents there that, like Matt said, are you know, have a lot of admin privileges to do pretty much whatever they need to do and are directly from Amazon headquarters, not a call center in India or wherever else.

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And that's one of the most popular events at the conference is sellers being able, because I mean, matt, you gave a perfect example of probably the most extreme scenario where somebody's account is shut down.

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But I feel like everybody who goes there the vast majority of people who go there as a seller usually have at least one sort of nagging account issue on some sort of hero product that they just can't get fixed, and it's crazy how they'll set up an appointment in 10 minutes.

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That listing is magically fixed by going to the conference, and so just so you know, they expand that it's not just a ballroom anymore, it's the entire up top floor.

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The entire top floor is dedicated to the Cellar Cafe.

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Yeah, I think that speaks to one.

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It's very interesting to know that they expanded that how big of a problem that is.

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And two again, know the game that you're playing.

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There's there are still advantages to be on Amazon and all those types of things.

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But also understand that Amazon knows they have more sellers than they could ever want coming in the door and so they have very little interest and are investing very little in keeping sellers happy.

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They care way more about keeping their customers and shareholders happy.

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So whenever you think about, hey, this is unfair to sellers, just know that's a part of the game and that's not going to change until there is other significant competition for seller dollars.

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Oh yeah, it is absolutely the game that you're playing, and if you don't know that going into it, you're going to be really disappointed when, when things hit the fan.

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But you know it's just, it's a massive opportunity, don't I mean?

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don't shy away from.

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Amazon obviously pay attention to it, but but recognize that probably, on balance, the level of opportunity is matched by the level of headache that you're going to find on the platform Yep.

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All right.

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Well, I actually have something to say in terms of updates with what you just said, john, about Amazon not investing in helping sellers, and you'll be surprised to hear what I have to say.

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So, like I said, three main themes that were pretty much what Accelerate was about in terms of announcements from Amazon, john, if you remember from last year, really one of the bigger themes of last year was their supply chain and logistics.

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It almost seemed like they were trying to negate the need for 3PLs and freight forwarders and things like that, because of them opening up their very, very strong supply chain to sellers, and that theme it followed through to this year.

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As a matter of fact, like the very the keynote, the very pretty much the entire keynote of the very beginning opening session was all about supply chain, was all about AWD and AGL and all of the things that they're offering and some new tools and some new services that they're offering.

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So I would say that's probably the biggest, one of the bigger themes of the show they introduce what they call-.

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Matt, just to correct you for a second before we go on.

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For the listeners that may not be aware, awd Amazon Warehousing and Distribution essentially what it is is it feeds into your FBA, so it's a way to have inventory where you're not paying nearly as much for Amazon FBA fees and it's also and I think we've talked about it here on the podcast before a way to avoid those over inventory or under inventory fees that Amazon has started charging.

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And then AGL is Amazon Global Logistics and, like you said, matt, that's kind of their attempt at cutting out a lot of these logistics companies and that type of stuff that sellers have been working with for a long time to get their inventory into Amazon and into 3PLs.

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Yeah.

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So basically both of those represent what they're calling Amazon fully managed supply chain and there's a lot of benefits to that, but then on the flip side, there's a lot of things that sellers are scared about.

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What I found about AWD and this is very relevant to me and a brand that I work with is AWD is a very polarizing topic.

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You either love it or you hate it.

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There's no in the middle and again, that was really something that Amazon was pushing and obviously, from their standpoint, we're talking about all of the benefits of it.

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But I have some notes here that I'm going to be reading.

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So Amazon fully managed supply chain basically the overview of kind of what their vision is is it's a fully managed option for US-based sellers that automates the entire supply chain process, from picking up at your manufacturer, wherever that may be in China, all the way to customer delivery.

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So that's basically what their fully managed supply chain looks like, and there's a lot of different services that feed into that, like AWD and AGL, but also Amazon shipping is a new service that they're talking about.

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Multi-channel fulfillment is another way and that's actually Amazon giving us the ability to use our FBA inventory to send to sales on other channels, like your website or even other marketplaces.

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So yeah, so that was really a big.

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Theme of the keynote was their fully managed supply chain.

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Again, there's pros and cons to the idea of that, of giving Amazon control of your entire supply chain.

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Also, multi-channel fulfillment this is something that I think is a pretty I mean a pretty big announcement.

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As of now and I use multi-channel fulfillment pretty exclusively for website sales and things of that nature, but up until now the shipping time has been five days they're reducing that to three days.

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So now, multi-channel fulfillment orders.

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Within the next couple of months we'll have a three day delivery time, which is pretty big.

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That's a pretty big deal.

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That's.

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That cuts it almost in half.

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I would say that it's massive if they actually fulfill on that.

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And and I say that because we use so because of our warranty we of course send out a lot of warranty replacement items, since it's unlimited replacement, and so for a long time we have used MCF for those fulfillments and actually the warranty system that we built out registered, utilizes that also.

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It's designed to utilize MCF.

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Now we're building that out to utilize other 3PLs to fulfill on those warranty replacements for clients, because MCF has been really problematic for us for, I would say, probably nine months, not only in the sense that it's become incredibly expensive.

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It used to be.

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There's always been a premium for shipping via MCF versus an FBA shipment.

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For an order that came in on Amazon it might have been 25 percent or something.

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Now we probably pay, depending on the product, anywhere from 60 to 75 percent more to go MCF versus from one of our three PLs and doing it that way.

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So we're shifting away from MCF because of the cost.

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But also delivery times have been really bad, like we've been in a situation where, because they put FBA ahead of MCF, we would have MCF, like we had warranty shipments that were supposed to take, you know, maybe five to seven days or so and they were taking three weeks, four weeks.

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And of course we've got customers who are like, hey, you said you were sending me a warranty replacement.

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Where is it?

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And so it's very problematic.

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So I would say that's massive, you know, if they actually fulfill on it.

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I'm a little bit iffy on whether I believe that that's what's going to happen, because I think FBA is still going to take precedence.

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They're always going to give orders that come in on Amazon precedence over orders that come in off of Amazon.

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So it strikes me as maybe that's a little bit pie in the sky, but we'll see.

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Yeah, so another good one.

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So also, they talked about and I don't really know, I don't use AWD, so I don't know how big of a announcement this is but they're going to start allowing custom labeling via AWD so that you can it'll allow you to send bulk shipments to different sales channels.

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One of the big things for us is deciding do we use AWD and reduce our reliance on our 3PL?

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The biggest thing for us is that we're trying to get into retail and we're sending a lot of samples giant, almost pallets in some cases to some wholesalers and distributors.

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So I don't know if that would be.

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That was really.

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The biggest question that we had is of stopping us from, you know, going all in with AWD is how can we then send those types of orders?

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So if by bulk shipments they're talking about being able to send pallets to other sales channels or people, then this might solve that problem for us.

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So, again, I don't know how big of a deal that is, mike, maybe you can speak a little bit more to it, but that's one of the announcements that they made.

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I can't speak to it directly because we have not used AWD.

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We've investigated AWD.

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I guess my my thing with AWD is I think that there's a lot of potential benefit there.

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I don't think it's a bad idea for it to be a part of your logistics solution.

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And I say that because, as John mentioned, if you have product in AWD, then the one thing that cannot happen as long as there's inventory at AWD is you cannot technically stock out on a product, which is a big deal.

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Obviously, we all know selling on Amazon, stocking out is really problematic.

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However, just because you don't stock out technically doesn't mean you don't still have an issue, because the way that Amazon runs that is, of course.

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They become your forecaster for inventory and they ship inventory into the Amazon FCs as they believe it's needed.

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So if they don't forecast properly, you will run out of stock at the FCs, which means then what happens is your product will still be up, it'll still show as an FBA shipment, but it will show a delivery time that's out two or three weeks because Amazon knows it's still sitting at AWD.

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We can't get it to the customer as fast as if it was sitting in an FC.

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So in that scenario, even though you don't stock out, your CTRs and your CBRs go way down because your delivery time is so far out, and so there is some speculation on that as to which is worse, you know, is it better to stock out or is it better to have a long delivery time?

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I'm not sure that I know.

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My gut tells me that long delivery time is better, but I don't know how much better.

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So, but at least having AWD does solve that issue so that you don't ever stock out.

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But my gut tells me that the better solution is use AWD because, again, as John suggested, then you don't have the issue of over inventory and under inventory fees, right, which is a problem if you're running FBA and if you're doing AWD, at least you avoid those fees.

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But I would have backup, I would have an FBM option and hopefully I would set it up as seller fulfilled prime from an alternative 3PL so that that listing if your prime listing goes to a long delivery time, I believe the algorithm would.

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Then, as long as the pricing was the same, the algorithm would pull your seller fulfilled prime listing into the buy box, and so then your delivery times wouldn't be out so far.

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So I still think a backup.

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3pl is a good idea.

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I would never use AWD as my only staging warehouse solution for bringing product into Amazon FCs.

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I think that is a ridiculously stupid idea because I would never trust it.

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I think.

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I just I think you're putting way too many eggs in that basket and Amazon's not good enough at forecasting and whatnot right now to get that right.

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Yeah, we've had a couple of clients that have used AWD and, quite frankly, it has worked fairly well with them.

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But I think I've yeah that to your point, mike.

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You know we've definitely seen those issues where, if sales velocity changes drastically for whatever reason you know say they got featured in you know some big publication or whatever, and now all of a sudden instead of selling 10 a day, they're selling 50 a day, like AWD, and the algorithm really has a hard time adjusting for those types of things, and so you don't correct me if I'm wrong, but you and you would have more experience, since we haven't used AWD.

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You can't issue a manual inbound shipment from AWD.

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You can't initiate that yourself.

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You have to let AWD make that decision right.

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Their algorithm is the only thing.

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That's actually one of the thing now.

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Obviously this is Amazon talking, but they talked about improvements to that algorithm, where it actually is supposedly better than you do with your own inventory.

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But again, obviously that's Amazon talking.

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Well, I think, if we look at realistic solutions and this kind of comes back full circle to some of the other conversations we've had, because I think there's a couple of important kind of first principles to keep in mind there.

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One is you have to have a product in stock in order to sell, so that's the first thing.

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So you don't want to.

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I mean, you know running out of stock versus, you know, having two to three weeks shipping times is like choosing between getting punched in the face and getting punched in the gut, like both of them are terrible options.

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So you want to make sure you have good options and so when we look at this, you know and I think, mike, you know where you were leading with this is having a good system in place where you know I think what you saw was, I think, increasing your inventory to like 45 to 60 days worth of inventory actually increase your sales velocity, increase conversion rate at FBA, because then there was things that were always sitting at the right fulfillment warehouses to where customers truly were getting the product within that one to two days.

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It's kind of that Amazon signature promise that your brand is now delivering on that promise by giving Amazon enough inventory to do what they need to do in order to make that happen in their different fulfillment centers.

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So that's one.

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We're working on it.

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We've seen that and we actually have seen other brands are indicating the same.

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Right now we're trying to make sure that we get all the pieces put together properly so that we'll always be in that position, so that we don't have those issues.

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So, to be clear, we haven't perfected that yet, but that's what we're working on.

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Not perfect yet, but you're working on it.

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But the other thing to think about too is that and if I remember right, mike, the reason you're not in AWD is because you have an oversized product.

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Is that right?

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Yeah, yeah, so for folks that have a standard size product, what I would think about is okay, so 45 to 60 days in FBA, you know.

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Maybe then what you do is 45 to 60 days in AWD, and then you know, strategize your inventory, any inventory beyond that at a 3PL or you know.

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Even, I think, what doesn't get covered enough, and I know you've mentioned it and I feel like you know they probably owe you a t-shirt or a hat or something at this point, but you know something like a you a t-shirt or a hat or something at this point, but you know something like skew drop yeah.

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In order, you know, as that kind of third option and using you know kind of a systematic approach, rather than, oh, we're just going to put everything in FBA or we're going to put it all into AWD and let Amazon manage all of it, but rather have kind of you know, stage velocities for the number of days worth of inventory you're going to have in each, so you get the best of all worlds of having control over your inventory.

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Well, at the same time let's be honest giving Amazon what it wants, so that way you're getting the best conversion rate, which means you're getting the most visibility, which means you're getting the most sales.

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Well, and if we're being real, I mean, let's face it, if you're a brand that's essentially a one-man operation, right, maybe you're doing mid-six, mid-seven figure or something and, for whatever reason, your brand is just a relatively easy brand to manage and you're one person, two people, whatever, two people, whatever.

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Adding complexity to your logistic structure is hard right.

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It requires a lot of thought and it requires a lot of maintenance and you can't always automate it completely.

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So if you don't have additional members on your team to manage that, then I understand the desire to just, hey, we're just going to throw it all into AWD and keep it simple, and that way I don't have to manage it.

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Amazon will forecast it, you know, whatever.

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It's easy, but it's not the best solution.

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So definitely think through that scenario and decide you know how risky is that and could you actually bring on somebody else you know to maybe manage that logistic side of things, so that you have that additional brainpower to have.

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Okay, we've got this 3PL, we've got AWD, maybe we've got skew drop in the mix and we kind of tie all that stuff together.

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It's not easy to do, but once you figure it out, you've got the processes in place and you have the person to manage it.

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I think it's a much better solution than just throwing it all in one basket and hoping for the best.

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Well, and I would push back on that a little bit in the sense of I don't think it needs to be super complicated either, though I mean I forget the name of the software that he's been working on, but I know Travis Siegler has been working on a software or is in this inventory software space with a solution that's trying to solve that problem.

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And there's other software solutions out there and I know personally I feel like we get software to death so I'm a little cautious as to signing up for another software.

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So I've done this on spreadsheets before, but sometimes it's as simple as, hey, we're just going to put for our most important products that we know move, maybe it's top 10 as, hey, we're just going to put for, you know, our most important products that we know move Maybe it's top 10, top 20, whatever what our sales for the week are into a spreadsheet and then we're going to extrapolate that out two months to say what does that inventory look like and do we have enough or do we not have enough and we need to order more?

00:22:22.375 --> 00:22:42.527
I get the pushback and I don't think you're entirely wrong, the only the only where the place where I think it gets iffy is if you are an Amazon brand but you're really just an Amazon seller, then that is not that difficult.

00:22:42.527 --> 00:23:36.797
No-transcript, everything together properly, and so I would just say, if you are just selling product on Amazon, you could probably get away with that, and you know, I don't argue that point, but I would say just from my own experience as a brand that's trying to build something bigger than that there is no way on God's green earth that two people could manage our brand and do that, you know, and actually get it right and get the inventory right and all of the logistics of putting the pieces together.

00:23:36.797 --> 00:23:37.880
That's not happening.

00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:49.962
Essentially, eight people you know that are that are managing our brand, and we're not a massive brand, but we have strategies that we're trying to employ off Amazon and they require manpower.

00:23:49.962 --> 00:23:53.098
So I guess that that would be the other side of that coin.

00:23:53.631 --> 00:23:55.675
Okay, Well, this conversation is super interesting.

00:23:55.715 --> 00:23:58.403
We have, we, we were talking about?

00:23:58.589 --> 00:24:01.077
we're talking about the least exciting of all of the updates.

00:24:01.117 --> 00:24:01.980
So we're going to move on.

00:24:03.790 --> 00:24:06.153
I don't mean to interrupt you guys, but I do mean to interrupt you guys.

00:24:06.153 --> 00:24:07.796
One last thing on supply chain.

00:24:07.796 --> 00:24:11.098
You guys are not allowed to go deep into this, although it is a cool.

00:24:11.098 --> 00:24:16.925
Cool, we've heard about it before, but MK30, drone deliveries, amazon, supposedly.

00:24:16.925 --> 00:24:23.989
Amazon expects to do 500 million drone deliveries by the end of this decade.

00:24:23.989 --> 00:24:25.880
500 million drone deliveries by the end of this decade.

00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:34.673
500 million drone deliveries by the end and it's 2024 right now, and so they're testing it, they're getting ready to test it in Arizona and, of all places, italy.

00:24:34.673 --> 00:24:36.057
So really cool.

00:24:36.057 --> 00:24:38.962
And they are talking about like one hour delivery times.

00:24:38.962 --> 00:24:42.699
So, like I said, you're not allowed to go into that any further.

00:24:42.739 --> 00:24:52.097
We're going to move over to one of the other overarching topics of the Amazon Accelerate and let's see would you guys want to do AI or do you want to do buy with Prime?

00:24:52.097 --> 00:24:53.059
What do you guys pick?

00:24:53.059 --> 00:24:56.272
Let's go with AI, let's end with AI?

00:24:56.272 --> 00:24:57.979
Okay, end with AI, all right.

00:24:57.979 --> 00:25:10.792
So buy with Prime Some really cool things happening with buy with Prime, and actually I think that there's there's some maybe that you can start, maybe looking into the future a little bit with some of the things that they're allowing with buy with prime.

00:25:11.114 --> 00:25:13.318
First one they're going to allow.

00:25:13.318 --> 00:25:16.674
It's going to be a buy with prime and PayPal integration.

00:25:16.674 --> 00:25:23.876
So, starting in 2025, sellers using buy with prime and their websites will be able to accept PayPal payments.

00:25:23.876 --> 00:25:27.551
Okay, so that offers a lot of flexibility.

00:25:27.551 --> 00:25:39.012
But then also, prime members can link their PayPal and Amazon accounts so that they'll automatically receive Prime shipping benefits when checking out with PayPal on supported platforms like Shopify.

00:25:39.012 --> 00:25:40.996
So that's a big one.

00:25:40.996 --> 00:25:58.796
I don't know if that affects any of us here, but the bigger one is a partnership with TikTok of all people, of all companies, and this is where I was talking about potentially being able to see into the future, because a year ago, a partnership with Amazon and TikTok was unheard of.

00:25:58.796 --> 00:26:00.942
Nobody thought that something like that would ever happen.

00:26:00.942 --> 00:26:19.304
However, very, very soon they're going to allow buy with Prime on TikTok ads, so sellers that are running TikTok ads will be able to display Prime badges and shipping times to help drive conversions directly from their ad to their Amazon inventory.

00:26:20.631 --> 00:26:22.493
Which that to me okay.

00:26:22.493 --> 00:26:40.175
So that is the one piece of information that you've given that suggests to me that this three-day MCF option might be real, because that's the only way that that scenario actually makes any sense at all, because that's all going to be MCF.

00:26:40.175 --> 00:26:41.807
That's not true FBA.

00:26:41.807 --> 00:26:46.494
So if that's MCF and they're going to show delivery times, they have to be able to meet that.

00:26:46.494 --> 00:26:49.382
So that suggests to me that maybe that's a realistic thing.

00:26:50.609 --> 00:26:50.789
Yeah.

00:26:50.789 --> 00:27:05.199
So what I'm wondering and this is what I was thinking when I was listening to this is again a year ago, if someone were to have told you that Amazon and TikTok would be partnering up, I would have most of us would have laughed in that person's face.

00:27:05.199 --> 00:27:16.781
So there's this thing going on, with the US government that says TikTok will be banned by the end of this year if they're not purchased by a US entity.

00:27:16.781 --> 00:27:21.261
Name the US entities that can afford TikTok.

00:27:21.261 --> 00:27:22.935
Let's start with Meta.

00:27:22.935 --> 00:27:25.517
Do you think Meta would ever partner with TikTok?

00:27:25.517 --> 00:27:32.791
No, because think about all the that would put all of the main social media networks in one basket, and that's not going to happen.

00:27:32.791 --> 00:27:33.996
Who are the other ones?

00:27:33.996 --> 00:27:34.718
Apple?

00:27:34.718 --> 00:27:35.740
I don't think that they're.

00:27:35.740 --> 00:27:37.474
I don't think that that is going to happen.

00:27:37.535 --> 00:27:38.577
Apple is going to buy TikTok?

00:27:38.577 --> 00:27:40.692
I mean maybe, but like who else?

00:27:40.692 --> 00:27:45.521
Who else can afford Amazon to even entertain that conversation?

00:27:45.521 --> 00:27:48.356
Nvidia why would NVIDIA do something like that?

00:27:48.356 --> 00:28:15.256
So if you believe that TikTok would think about selling if the US government is legitimately going to shut it down, there's very few companies that have enough money to purchase TikTok and I don't know, does this kind of tell into the future of, maybe, a potential purchase by Amazon and how much sense would that make for Amazon and even TikTok?

00:28:15.256 --> 00:28:16.679
How much sense would that make?

00:28:16.679 --> 00:28:18.303
It's interesting.

00:28:18.303 --> 00:28:19.351
It's interesting for sure.

00:28:19.351 --> 00:28:35.362
But I mean for people that have changed their focus or at least moved some of their focus to TikTok, having a Prime badge on TikTok ads, I mean that's going to increase a lot of trust, it's going to increase a lot of conversions just because having that Prime badge there.

00:28:35.362 --> 00:28:42.499
So I think that's a very massive development and I'm wondering if there's a lot more in the cards that will come from that partnership.

00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:46.962
So I do think that's actually a big, that's a pretty big announcement.

00:28:47.042 --> 00:28:54.748
Again, like I said, number one it gives me a lot more confidence in that MCF you know announcement that was made which could work out well.

00:28:55.028 --> 00:28:57.109
I don't know if it's going to change pricing for MCF.

00:28:57.109 --> 00:29:04.015
Mcf is still pretty pricey, so I don't know if that changes things too much on our end, but at least delivery times being better would be a significant improvement.

00:29:04.015 --> 00:29:30.664
You know, I would say, in terms of that partnership the one thing that you know about Amazon, that has always been true from the beginning and I believe is still true to this day they are very forward-looking, like they are always looking five, 10 years in the future, and so the fact that this partnership is happening suggests that they have a really strong belief that TikTok is going to exist in five or 10 years.

00:29:30.664 --> 00:29:41.702
And that means either, a, they know the government's not actually going to shut them down or, b, they already know somebody's buying TikTok, which means it's either them or it's somebody else.

00:29:41.702 --> 00:29:51.413
And my thought is I don't know of anybody any other player in the space that has the money to buy TikTok that would partner with Amazon in that way.

00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:53.267
Well, I don't even think it's necessarily a money thing.

00:29:53.319 --> 00:30:10.394
I mean, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but my we'll put it out there as my wild guess is it's less to do with the money and it's more to do with, at least right now, what's happening with the FTC and what will actually get approved for some sort of purchase or merger.

00:30:10.901 --> 00:30:14.232
There's no way that they'll allow Google or Meta to buy.

00:30:14.232 --> 00:30:28.932
Amazon right now doesn't really have any sort of meaningful capability in the social media space, Right, so they're probably able to get that deal through and they have the money in order to do it.

00:30:28.932 --> 00:30:37.655
Now, I'm not saying that that is Amazon, but if you're looking at potential players on the field, they make a lot more sense than the other companies that are out there.

00:30:37.655 --> 00:30:51.721
The other rumors around that is that it may end up that the company gets bought by a US entity, but the algorithm that drives TikTok gets separated out and that does not come across.

00:30:51.721 --> 00:30:53.406
So that's been one of the things that's been discussed.

00:30:53.406 --> 00:31:00.854
People would be more prepared in order to have a good idea of what that algorithm looks like than Amazon.

00:31:02.300 --> 00:31:02.580
Yeah, agreed.

00:31:02.580 --> 00:31:13.087
Okay, so last with Buy With Prime, but again also super exciting, and I think, michael, this will give you a little bit more confidence in the MCF shipping times.

00:31:13.087 --> 00:31:16.950
But they also announced an integration with Google Shopping Ads.

00:31:16.950 --> 00:31:33.476
See the Amazon, and well, you're going to actually be able to see Google shopping listings that have the buy with prime button, but also it'll show shipping times there as well.

00:31:33.556 --> 00:31:39.280
So a Google integration as well, which I think is also how soon did they say that those integrations are going to occur?

00:31:39.280 --> 00:31:40.243
They didn't.

00:31:40.324 --> 00:31:44.262
I don't that I know if they didn't give a timeframe, but it didn't sound like it was very far out.

00:31:44.262 --> 00:31:48.692
It sounded like it was like around the same timeframe, around beginning of 2025, kind of a thing.

00:31:48.712 --> 00:31:57.502
Okay, well, because you're doing these via MCF, you're also collecting all the shipping information and the email address and that type of stuff.

00:31:57.502 --> 00:32:04.510
So, from a you know, building a brand and building a list perspective, there's a lot of value in that, yeah for sure.

00:32:05.780 --> 00:32:12.138
So I mean, you know, buy with prime I don't remember how old buy with prime is, but I don't think there was a whole lot of adoption in the beginning.

00:32:12.138 --> 00:32:17.551
I don't know what the numbers look like, but I've never purchased anything using buy with prime.

00:32:17.551 --> 00:32:34.288
But with all of these partnerships and integrations, I think that they're Amazon clearly is going all in and I mean, imagine a world where any anything that you buy on any platform, you're able to get tomorrow or the next day, or with this drone delivery in an hour.

00:32:34.288 --> 00:32:55.929
So you know again, there's, in my opinion, some pros and cons to that utopia world or dystopia world, however you look at it of having Amazon be, you know, the main driver, main driver of of e-commerce deliveries, and but I mean they have the platform to do it and so they have the logistics, they have the network to do it, so so, yeah, so that's buy with prime.

00:32:56.109 --> 00:33:02.941
In my opinion, some exciting things, and it's going to make you know, selling on these other platforms and using Amazon inventory a whole lot easier to do.

00:33:02.941 --> 00:33:11.454
So, all right, ai, so a lot of updates with AI, and again, you can take these either way.

00:33:11.454 --> 00:33:14.507
We talked about Amazon Accelerate.

00:33:14.507 --> 00:33:16.952
One of the benefits of going there is Seller Cafe.

00:33:16.952 --> 00:33:45.711
One of the things that I was thinking about ever since the chat GPT stormed onto the scene is you can build custom GPTs, and if you were to teach a custom GPT and I think there's been players, people in this space, like, I think, steve Simonson built some sort of a tool where it basically ingested as much of Amazon Seller University as it could and it built a chat GPT or a custom GPT that you could ask questions and it would give you very specific answers.

00:33:45.900 --> 00:33:51.307
Well, amazon announced Project Amelia, which I'm going to read the overview from my notes.

00:33:51.307 --> 00:34:26.989
It's an AI-driven virtual assistant integrated into Seller Central, designed to provide personalized and real-time support for sellers across key areas such as inventory management, demand forecasting and account health, such as inventory management, demand forecasting and account health, and one of the examples that they gave in one of the sessions was you able to open up this chatbot within Seller Central and saying what can I do to increase sales on X SKU or what are my delivery times with this particular SKU?

00:34:26.989 --> 00:34:31.070
So basically an AI seller assistant built into Seller Central.

00:34:31.070 --> 00:34:43.476
That, in my opinion, sounds a little bit like an automated Seller Central or Seller Support Staff, which I think that there was a lot of people again that were like on both sides, like that sounds like it's great.

00:34:43.496 --> 00:34:46.498
It just tells you to increase your ad spend Right.

00:34:48.905 --> 00:34:52.503
Yeah, I know how you could sell more products.

00:34:52.644 --> 00:34:54.327
Have you tried doubling your ads?

00:34:54.327 --> 00:34:58.557
Yeah, yeah, yep, I kid, I kid.

00:34:58.557 --> 00:35:00.903
I'm sure that there's gonna be some good stuff that comes up.

00:35:00.903 --> 00:35:05.347
It'll also probably tell you to double your ads yeah guarantee you will.

00:35:05.387 --> 00:35:07.817
So a couple bullet points that I took as notes.

00:35:07.817 --> 00:35:13.192
So it provides tailored insights based on seller data, including marketing strategies and operational improvements.

00:35:13.192 --> 00:35:28.750
You can also ask Amelia questions and it'll respond using generative AI, similar to other AI chatbots, guiding you through complex tasks and also automate responses to common inquiries, like adjusting product listings, without the need for manual case creation.

00:35:28.750 --> 00:35:31.195
So a big announcement.

00:35:31.195 --> 00:35:33.382
There was a lot of talk, a lot of chatter around Project Amelia.

00:35:33.983 --> 00:35:36.293
Did they suggest before you move on to anything else?

00:35:36.293 --> 00:35:49.148
Did they give any indication that the AI would be able to do anything, or is it simply you can converse with the AI and it can tell you what you should be able to do?

00:35:50.001 --> 00:35:54.711
So I got the idea that it was more of a converse conversation type of a chatbot.

00:35:54.711 --> 00:36:04.969
However, there were rumblings of I don't remember what session this was, but someone talked about a complete redesign of Seller Central with this AI in mind.

00:36:04.969 --> 00:36:26.532
So I think that maybe the long-term vision is to be able to do things, to be able to take action, but as of now, it's really just more of a chatbot which, in my opinion, I would use that over opening up a support case in most cases Now, again, with most generative AI type tools, in the beginning it's not going to be great, but it'll get better over time.

00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:29.987
Yeah, and that's very true of Amazon's tools that it rolls out.

00:36:29.987 --> 00:36:33.867
So be prepared for it to be rough to start out with, but they'll get it there.

00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:37.686
Yep, exactly, all right, so that was Project Amelia.

00:36:37.686 --> 00:36:43.050
Now here's where most sellers were like yeah, no thanks, ai generated listings.

00:36:43.050 --> 00:36:52.228
So sellers can now use AI tools to generate complete product listings from simple inputs like images and brief descriptions.

00:36:52.228 --> 00:37:04.306
They gave a couple of examples of this and, while it looked cool, again it was Amazon talking, so take it with a grain of salt, but apparently they talk about it allowing sellers to create optimized product titles, bullet points and descriptions quickly.

00:37:04.306 --> 00:37:13.693
If you look at any of the emails that you get Amazon's suggestions not only advertising, but also from your listing most of what they say is nonsense and I wouldn't.

00:37:13.693 --> 00:37:16.210
I wouldn't do any of the suggestions that they give you.

00:37:16.210 --> 00:37:22.719
So, yeah, not not too excited about that and, as a matter of fact, I would prefer Amazon to stay off of my listings for the most part.

00:37:23.260 --> 00:37:33.807
Now, having said that, there was a bit of an innovation that they talked about, which I, in terms of risk, reward and things that I don't want Amazon touching, I think A plus content.

00:37:33.807 --> 00:37:40.552
I don't remember what the stat is, but, like, only 18% of shoppers even go down that far on a detail page.

00:37:40.552 --> 00:37:49.722
This where Amazon's AI can now generate A-plus content based on some lifestyle images and descriptive text.

00:37:49.722 --> 00:38:02.487
So basically, you can take your description or your bullet points, throw it into this AI tool and some images and it'll automatically create A-plus content for you, and the example that they gave looked pretty darn good.

00:38:02.487 --> 00:38:25.556
So for sellers that are bootstrapping don't have the money to pay an agency $3,000 to do A-plus content for them, I think this is a decent solution, similar to that tool that they introduced I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but where you can upload still images inside of Campaign Manager and it would give you some basic moving images to make a quote-unquote video for.

00:38:26.081 --> 00:38:28.065
So now we've got about two minutes before we've got to wrap up.

00:38:28.065 --> 00:38:30.048
What other on the AI you?

00:38:30.068 --> 00:38:30.929
got yeah.

00:38:30.929 --> 00:38:36.329
So I mean that's those are really the biggest ones but also AI, personalized product recommendations and titles.

00:38:36.329 --> 00:38:36.931
This is the other.

00:38:36.931 --> 00:38:39.025
This is where most people were like absolutely not.

00:38:39.025 --> 00:38:52.239
But it's actually interesting where it's almost like where what they said that they were going to do is they're not going to change or add any content, but they're going to adjust titles based on what a consumer types into the search results.

00:38:52.239 --> 00:39:08.960
So if someone's looking for a rubber handled garlic press and you have rubber handled and garlic press like in disparate places on your listing, it will move those words to the front of the title based on what the customer was searching.

00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:18.748
So it's kind of dynamic in that it's going to rearrange some of the keywords on your title and change it to exactly what the customer typed into the search bar.

00:39:19.510 --> 00:39:20.733
So did they indicate.

00:39:20.733 --> 00:39:27.481
Are they rewriting the whole title or are they just shifting your title back and adding that to the beginning?

00:39:27.623 --> 00:39:31.268
They are rewriting it for that particular search result.

00:39:31.268 --> 00:39:34.661
So it's not a permanent change that they're making.

00:39:34.661 --> 00:39:38.472
It's based contextually on what they typed into the search bar.

00:39:38.472 --> 00:39:41.168
They're going to move things as long as you have it all in the title.

00:39:41.168 --> 00:39:50.188
And now again, there's a lot of chatter out there talking about Rufus and Cosmo and all of these things about speaking more to the consumer as opposed to keyword stuffing.

00:39:50.188 --> 00:40:00.251
That's I think that's an argument for this and I think that's kind of an offshoot of that, where it's going to contextually change the order of keywords in your title based on what consumers are looking for.

00:40:01.059 --> 00:40:01.320
All right.

00:40:01.320 --> 00:40:11.014
Well, guys, I think that's unfortunately at this point we got to wrap, but I think that was a great rapid fire on Amazon Accelerate and I would just encourage listeners out there to think about this as a buffet.

00:40:11.014 --> 00:40:14.349
There are a lot of important announcements that come out at Amazon Accelerate.

00:40:14.349 --> 00:40:32.108
I know we're obviously more excited about some versus others, but pick out the couple of announcements in there that really excite you and dive into those, because there is definitely some absolute gold in some of those announcements that they make, and being a first mover can be a real advantage in these types of events.

00:40:32.108 --> 00:40:36.565
So don't get discouraged if there's a couple of things that you heard in there that make you cringe.

00:40:36.565 --> 00:40:45.639
As you probably heard in this conversation, we're in that same boat, but I think that there's also value in finding those couple of things or announcements that Amazon made where you say, hey, that really applies to my brand and we

058: Tactic Tuesdays: Amazon Accelerator & New Amazon Releases

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