034: Isaac's E-Commerce Insights: Transforming a Side Hustle into an Amazon Triumph

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Welcome everyone to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.

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I'm your host, jon Stojan, along with my co-host, mike Kaufman, and today we have something new.

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This is our first Brand Builder episode, where we share the stories of people who are in the trenches actively building their brands and kind of sharing their experiences.

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If you're an Amazon seller and you want to share your story on one of our Brand Builder episodes, you can apply at brandfortresshqcom backslash brand builder Today for this first episode, I'm really honored to introduce Isaac as our first brand builder guest and with that, isaac, tell folks a little about yourself and kind of your background into how you got to selling on Amazon.

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Yeah, absolutely so.

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Thanks.

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Firstly, thanks for having me on here.

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I feel very honored to be here.

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It's a great show you guys have and a bunch of awesome recommendations that I've implemented in my business.

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So, wrapped to be here, let's start 2021 in a corporate job and trying to long climb in that corporate ladder after finishing university and at that stage I was very into that corporate scene but started to head down a rather dark path where I was feeling a sense of deep dread.

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Heading into the office, I felt like that future wasn't for me and I would look at people's roles three or four more senior executive roles and have zero excitement for where that would lead.

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And if I was offered that position the next day, it brought no joy.

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So I fell into a dark space and I started to ask myself a lot of questions.

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I did a lot of introspection therapy books, seminars to really find out what was a compelling future that I wanted that actually drove me forward.

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And then came Amazon.

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So at one of those seminars, somebody presented on the Amazon FBA business model and I sat on it for three months, knowing that this was something that aligned to my future, but didn't have the courage to take the step until I finally dove in and I'd like to say never look back.

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But there was lots of struggles along that journey.

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That first year and a half of trying to pick that first product was a real struggle where I developed the product for three to four months and then went back to the start after I learned, hey, actually that's not going to work and I don't want to launch something that won't work.

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Eventually, at the year and a half mark launched that product.

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It had great traction and I continue to sell those products now and have expanded that range, expanded those marketplaces and, in a very great spot, that product's now patented, so it's got a great design there and I'm living a lot of that life, of the that I sort of envisioned those few years ago of having travel, connecting with other entrepreneurs and growing a business whilst still working that corporate job, which is actually a lot more fulfilling now that it's filling and funding this business venture and creating that future life that I look forward to.

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So yeah, currently at the stage of scaling that business and very excited for what's to come.

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Okay, so a couple of things that just kind of caught my ear, I mean.

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I think the first one is is that you know a lot of people think that in order to be, you know, a seven figure seller, thature seller that you need to have that's the only thing that you can be doing, so you're working kind of a nine-to-five in addition to the brand that you've built on Amazon.

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Is that correct?

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Yeah, that's correct.

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So what I found is, as at least in my experience of scaling this e-commerce business, it's the quicker I've wanted to grow it, the more capital I've needed.

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So the nine to five has worked perfectly in funding my lifestyle and providing capital to grow the brand quicker.

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Now I could burn the boats and I could go straight into the business, but it would actually stunt the growth and not help it.

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So as long as I have the time to do both, I've actually found this more advantageous to have both until I get to a certain point where it's no longer required to have that day job.

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Yeah, I love that because I feel like it's very counterintuitive to a lot of the things that we hear out there where, well, you need to be a full-time entrepreneur or you're not real business.

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All those types of things entrepreneur or you're not, you know real business all those types of things that I think you provide a much more or maybe a counterpoint to that of what that looks like in real life and the advantages of having, like you said, that nine to five.

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That pays for your lifestyle, then, and also helps you scale the brand, because, you know, even a successful brand is very, can be very capital intensive.

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Well, and I think the other thing that's nice, you know I like that.

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You know it's like you said, john.

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I mean a lot of times you hear people.

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You know they speak in absolutes.

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You know like you speak to individuals who have been successful in business, right, entrepreneurship, whatever.

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But it's really common that they speak in absolutes like this is the way I did it, and so this is the way it must be.

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You know, like this is the way I did it, and so this is the way it must be.

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You know like this is the way it has to be.

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And I think that there's a lot of roads, you know, to success.

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I mean, there may be some principles, you know, that apply in most cases, but you know you do what works for you and this is what's working for Isaac.

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So you know, I think you know, more power to you, man.

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Thanks both, and I think it also is a motivator.

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I look forward to the day when I fully transition into the business and be able to take that to different places around the world.

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So that's something I use as I meditate on regularly and I envision regularly to actually drive me forward.

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That's that next step that I get to look forward to.

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But in the meantime, like, how good is this?

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But in the meantime, like, how good is this?

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Can I ask you a question, Isaac?

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So when you talk about the nine to five being an avenue that not only helps you know, to cover just regular daily living and whatnot, but also then provide some of that funding for the business For listeners who might be wondering, what do you feel like is what's the best way for me to put this?

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So, depending on the profitability of a particular product that you're selling, what your margins are and what kind of fees you've got, or that sort of thing, obviously that plays a big role in terms of cash flow, and my guess would be that it's probably a situation where the nine to five is providing the cash flow.

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Like, I mean, we talk about it as capital, but in a sense, it probably is one of those situations if I had to guess where maybe the cash flow is difficult, Like maybe you've got decent margins, but the way that things are set up right now, cash flow is difficult and so the nine to five helps you cash flow.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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It's a great point and it's probably something that would lead into our next part of the conversation when we actually dig into a few of those issues.

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But what I've found is, particularly with my new products when I launched them, it's a while before they get profitable, so I'm needing to front a lot of cash flow in the first nine to 12 months in order to get that working capital in the business and then fund those next orders while not making a profit on those new SKUs.

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So it's definitely a matter of cash flow and then still being able to sustain a level of living and not have to take money out of the business while actually needing to fund it.

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The other benefit has been from a lending perspective.

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So having a consistent, solid corporate income has meant I'm able to gain more lending, as generally, banks look at a more favorable salary over a business income in order to get loans and help fund that business forward as well.

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Sure, so I'm curious about something else that you said and I think I heard it come up a couple of times.

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So the first thing when you were talking about when you first started out, you said it took a, like you launched a product, you went through that process and it sounds like there was about a year and a half where you kind of struggled.

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Talk to me about what happened there and kind of what your lessons that you took away from that initial year and a half.

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Yeah, great question, john.

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So I think it was just part of the learning curve.

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So that first course that I bought, where I learned Amazon FBA, they harped on about differentiation and making your product different enough and stand out, and that's how you'll succeed on Amazon.

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When I first started developing those first couple products, I was basing it off that and what I learned along that journey is differentiation is not enough.

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You need USP, so you need unique selling proposition.

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You need to look at what customers are currently experiencing, what's currently being offered, and how you can make that better, how you can solve a real problem in the market.

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And those first few products that I was developing just didn't have that.

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They just looked differently, seemed a bit different, but that wasn't going to be enough.

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And then it would have been a matter of competing on price, which is just a game.

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I wouldn't have won against Chinese sellers.

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Price, which is just a game.

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I wouldn't have won against Chinese sellers.

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And so with the product I eventually launched, it was solving a real problem space.

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So it's a storage solution and doubling the amount of storage you can have compared to the competitors.

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That allowed me to sell for twice the price of any competitor and sort of carve out my own niche within that competitor and sort of carve out my own niche within that.

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Okay, I love that, I absolutely love that, because I think that you know differentiation is, you know, is kind of, you know it's a buzzword that you hear and it's important, but I do think you know, like, like you said, like that whole idea, that there are ways that you can differentiate, that make you look different but ultimately don't solve any additional problem for a customer.

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They don't add any value to what you're selling.

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You know it's like if everybody else is selling red and you decide to sell green, well that's great, you know, but that's only a benefit to the customer if, for some reason, they want to camouflage whatever it is in the trees, right, like it's not.

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You know, the color differentiation is probably not going to be enough and of course, your, your competitors, can do that.

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You know.

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You've now correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you said earlier that this design change that you made, that it is a patented change.

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Is that correct?

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Yeah, and so that in and of itself is is real.

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I mean, not only is it a USP, but it also, you know, you really have built a moat around your brand in that sense, because it's a lot harder to overcome that patent issue.

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At least you have a way to fight against other sellers that might try to copy that design.

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I'm just now seeing.

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I saw the first competitor the other day come in with my design.

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Now they've done it very poorly.

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Their star rating's 3.2.

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Their sales aren't very strong, but it's the first one I've seen come into market with my design.

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So I'm actually working through all right now.

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How do I exercise that patent?

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How do I reach out to that seller?

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I actually even considered not having their listing shut down and advertising on it, as it's probably even good publicity to see a very poor made version of my product and then advertise on that.

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Hey, this is a correct solution to it.

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But I've just started reaching out to that seller and aiming to discuss and navigate through.

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What are you doing?

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This is a breach of my patent Right.

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So just out of curiosity, so is the?

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So you had a product and you looked at it and because I think this is important for just for people to kind of understand that problem solving process so you had a product.

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You saw that it wasn't you know that was different, but it wasn't really solving a unique problem.

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And so then you created essentially a different version of that product that really had a unique selling proposition that also allowed you to patent.

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Is that kind of the route that you took?

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well, what happened is I went down different niches first, so those I was going to launch into a different niche, complete different products, and then, when I got to the final stage, I'm like, look, this isn't really solving a problem, so I started fresh.

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I went back to scratch twice, three.

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The third product I tried, so I went back to scratch twice after about three to four months of product development and working with suppliers and samples, and the last one I went for is the one I ended up launching I think the other nice thing about that I you know, is that and you've said it exactly this way multiple times, you know but is that you're solving a problem now?

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And the reason I like that is because it's very customer focused.

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And I think ultimately I mean that's something that we talk about a lot on this podcast is that the things that you're doing as a business, if you're always focused on how can we make the process, how can we make the lives of our customers better through what we sell, how we support it, what kind of service we offer?

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You know all of those things, then you almost can't lose, as long as you're following just basic good business principles on the back end, making sure that you've got a decent profit margin and things of that nature, paying attention to your numbers, but it's almost impossible to lose.

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It's really more so a question of the time horizon, right, like eventually a business of that nature is going to be, you know, successful.

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You know, and obviously success is, I guess, in the eye of the beholder in terms of just what kind of revenue stream that looks like.

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But the point is you're going to get there because customers are going to like what you're doing.

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They're going to like the fact that you're solving their problem.

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They're going to be willing to support your brand, whereas if you're not solving a problem, then you're really not focused on your customer, you're only focused on your profit and in the end, that's never going to win anyways.

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And making sure that they do make sense.

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Probably in my eyes, the two key pillars is or probably three is there demand?

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Are you solving a problem?

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And then do the numbers stack up.

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And I think, with a finance background, that's always been something I've enjoyed delving into and I know some people are afraid to look at the numbers of their business and that can be the downfall and get clear on them.

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But I think it's knowing the numbers that matter in your business and then tracking them and then knowing the actions you need to take if they go wrong and if they're outside a certain range.

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An example for me.

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So I went to a Tony Robbins Business Mastery event earlier this year, which was absolutely incredible, and before that I already had fine-tuned the numbers I was tracking, I was very clear on a weekly basis.

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But then I heard something that really stuck with me and the guy at the event said if you were out of your business for six months and you were only being fed three to five key metrics weekly, what would you want them to be?

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So what are fed three to five key metrics weekly?

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What would you want them to be?

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So what are the three to five key metrics that would give you an accurate pulse check of your business?

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So I started looking at that.

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They suggested some and then you'd want to tailor them based on the business type and I found them to be like a few obvious ones, like your sales, your tacos, your return rate, net profit margin, and then I had also inventory efficiency.

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So how effective am I at turning the total value of inventory into sales and then also the average order value, as I'm generally looking to increase my basket size?

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And what are your concerns?

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So let me step back to the inventory efficiency.

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What KPI or KPIs are you tracking specifically to gauge how efficient you feel like you're being with your inventory?

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Yeah, great question.

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So I take sales over total inventory value, sales over total inventory value and that would come up as a percentage.

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And then the other one I'd also check is based on my forecasting of stock levels, average months of weighted months of inventory.

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So I'm checking that I have between.

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For me, the the way that I make sure that I'm always adequately stocked but not overstocked is about between four to five months of inventory on hand whether that be total with my supplier or in Amazon portionally, and totaling that up to make sure that there's always enough stock there that I'm not going to run out but I'm not overstocked, and then just tracking, yeah, how sales compared to total inventory value.

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No, that's great, how good am.

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I at turning the capital invested in the business into sales is what I'm tracking.

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So what do you think?

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Sorry, John, you were going to say something.

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Oh, I was just.

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I just think that calculation in that thought process is becoming more important.

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As you know, amazon now is introducing, you know, introducing low inventory fees and really essentially forcing sellers to really dial in on having that right amount of inventory.

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Yeah, for sure.

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I think it's interesting too.

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I read an article the other day Well, I shouldn't say I read the article, I read a portion of it, but mostly the title was what got me and I found it very interesting because I'm not so sure that they're wrong and basically they were.

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I don't remember exactly what, how the title was worded, but essentially it said Amazon's new fee introductions equals an extinction event for Amazon sellers, and I found it an interesting title that I'm not so sure is terribly far off the mark, because I think we have reached a point with the Amazon fee structure where if you don't know your numbers and you haven't been managing them properly and managing your inventory properly and understanding how that functions, cashflow and all those sorts of things I think you are in a position where you might be too far behind the eight ball to fix it before the fees eat you alive.

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You know, obviously, you know hopefully sellers will figure it out, but I do think that there's a fair number of sellers that aren't going to get it figured out fast enough and they're going to end up in a world of hurt, which of course you know that provides an opportunity for those sellers that do figure it out or already haven't figured out, but I think we are in a position now where the fees are just so high you can't get away with it.

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I mean, there was a time along, you know, back 16, 17, 18, you know, you could not know your numbers and probably get away with that and still do fairly decent because it was wild west, but the fee structure is just too high now.

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Yeah, I want to circle back, actually, isaac, to something you said earlier.

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So we talked quite a bit about processes and KPIs and that unique selling proposition solving problems.

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I'm curious what does your process look like for identifying those problems and which problems problems you go?

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Hey, I definitely want to make sure that I develop a product to solve for my customer base yeah.

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So the the ways I did it in the past and how I developed this product.

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It's changed now and how I do it today would be quite different.

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I think there's like some incredible ai tools out there to really help you identify, like, what are the key opportunities here and then actually address them and work with your supplier.

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In the past, when I first developed my product, it was literally reading reviews and it was getting a gauge of cool what are the top issues and can I address them?

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Is there something I can do?

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And then speaking to suppliers and saying what can you do to solve this?

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I have this idea.

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Is that doable?

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Is it feasible, given these price ranges I can probably sell for.

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So having that process and that open dialogue with the supplier to see what they can do and working with them because they understand the making of the product and what they're capable of doing, far better than I do.

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But now there's some incredible tools.

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So Shurex is one I've used in the past which basically summarizes all the reviews, summarizes the demographic of customers and spits out hey, these are the top issues.

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Can you solve them?

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I loved in the past going on Pinterest and seeing some cool design ideas and seeing how more innovative solutions that generally haven't been brought to Amazon yet and thinking about how you can infuse some of that into your product.

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But yeah, it's really the key for me has been working with the supplier and seeing, like, what do they think they can do to address it, and that's when you know you have a good supplier when actually coming to you with suggestions as well.

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I think one thing that's useful too is especially on the front end.

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You know, when you're looking for suppliers for a particular product, I can say that for a new product that we're looking at launching in a new brand, completely new category.

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When we went to the Canton Fair, one of the things that I was looking very closely at as we were going to various booths was do I see any products hanging on the wall in their samples that appear to be something different than what every other manufacturer in the category is making?

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You know, and then talking to them about that, you know, like, what was their design process?

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You know, is this their design?

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Have they patented it?

00:21:27.002 --> 00:21:54.026
You know, whatever, because that gives you an idea as to just how innovative that manufacturer is on their own and whether they're going to be willing to step out and be innovative for you, and so I think there's some real value there, especially if that is your, if that's your plan, you know, like if you really do intend on releasing products that are solving problems, that are innovative, that you can patent, then working with a manufacturer that's already doing that, you know, can be a real help.

00:21:54.026 --> 00:21:55.891
What do you feel, isaac?

00:21:55.891 --> 00:22:00.893
Maybe it would be interesting to hear from your perspective.

00:22:01.434 --> 00:22:16.580
So far what I'm hearing is that one of your superpowers is that you have some background and training in finance and whatnot and so you know you really do know your numbers, probably much better than most sellers, especially sellers that maybe are are.

00:22:16.580 --> 00:22:24.587
Still you know at your level I mean a lot of a lot of sellers maybe that are sitting you know have moved into that, say you know high seven, eight figure, nine figure range.

00:22:24.587 --> 00:22:25.650
Of course they know their numbers.

00:22:25.650 --> 00:22:27.413
You know have moved into that, say you know high seven, eight figure, nine figure range.

00:22:27.413 --> 00:22:28.595
Of course they know their numbers.

00:22:28.595 --> 00:22:33.740
You know they've got people hired on staff, they've got you know.

00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:37.855
But when you're in that you know that that somewhat you know lower level, in that lower seven figures or six figures a lot of sellers don't know and they don't have a background.

00:22:37.855 --> 00:22:41.727
You know like they just decided one day they wanted to start a business and here they are right.

00:22:41.727 --> 00:22:43.450
So you know.

00:22:43.450 --> 00:22:51.541
I guess I would be interested to know number one do you feel like that is kind of one of your superpowers and that that's made a big impact for you?

00:22:51.541 --> 00:22:56.760
But then also, what else do you feel like you're doing really well in your business.

00:22:56.760 --> 00:23:03.424
That you feel like is, kind of say, one of the two or three things that have made you most successful as an Amazon seller.

00:23:04.607 --> 00:23:05.250
Great question.

00:23:05.289 --> 00:23:05.570
Mike.

00:23:05.830 --> 00:23:06.621
I think the numbers.

00:23:06.621 --> 00:23:09.970
One is definitely one, and that probably links back to the nine to five.

00:23:09.970 --> 00:23:21.941
And why it's advantageous is I work as a senior consultant in commercials, so my role is, when we deliver new things in the bank, determining how much revenue it'll increase or how much cost it'll reduce.

00:23:21.941 --> 00:23:26.653
So then we can weigh up is that something we want to spend our money on and actually build for customers?

00:23:26.653 --> 00:23:33.028
And so I spend a lot of my day in the nine to five actually in spreadsheets assessing commercials.

00:23:33.842 --> 00:23:42.946
So it's definitely something I was already inclined to, and now, every day, I'm enhancing as well, and I can take those learnings to my business and vice versa.

00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:55.166
So I think the financials has always been one been in touch with those, but I've always been keen to evolve it and that's what that tony robbins event taught me earlier this year is there's better things I could be.

00:23:55.166 --> 00:24:10.388
Tracking and necessarily looking at all the metrics every week is not as helpful as getting targeted on a few and deciding if these move then what's my action to respond to them and being very clear on that.

00:24:10.388 --> 00:24:37.106
I think my other superpower is probably I've always been very clear on my outcome and this probably comes back to a lot of the personal development work I did four to five years ago and continue to do is I regularly look and define what success looks like and whether that's for a product when I expect it to be profitable, how much sales I'm looking to hit, what I'm expecting to hear from customers.

00:24:37.106 --> 00:24:49.048
I get clear on that and then if the outcome, if the results, are not aligning to that, I look for what actions I can take to influence it, and I endeavor to change and influence that.

00:24:49.048 --> 00:25:06.884
And so I think that's been a real superpower and I think if you don't in your business, if you're not clear on where you're looking to go, then you can sort of get pulled in so many directions, trying to do a million things but not actually doing effective actions to move you where you're aiming to go, because you're not clear on that.

00:25:06.884 --> 00:25:10.981
So that's probably been a strength of mine is is that component.

00:25:11.403 --> 00:25:13.148
And then probably the last one.

00:25:13.148 --> 00:25:18.970
Last key one was just around relationship with suppliers, which you hear a lot around the podcast land it's.

00:25:18.970 --> 00:25:24.113
It's a very important thing to have that good relationship, but I've always been pretty personable.

00:25:24.113 --> 00:25:33.663
So when I finally got to meet my suppliers last year and go there in person and connect with them, the relationship went up up another level.

00:25:33.663 --> 00:25:39.122
So if you're willing to step into that relationship, you're going to get better terms.

00:25:39.122 --> 00:25:51.003
You're going to have somebody who's looking out for your back and believes you're a genuine business and serious about building a long-term relationship, and they're probably going to go out of their way a bit more to serve you.

00:25:51.885 --> 00:25:57.287
So I did have kind of along the lines of numbers I was curious about, just based on that kind of the background that you gave us.

00:25:57.287 --> 00:26:03.666
So one of the things I noticed you're in a few different marketplaces and you're talking about, I think, expanding into the UK soon.

00:26:03.666 --> 00:26:17.894
From a numbers perspective, I'm curious what, if you feel like the expansions that you've done so far have worked out well and what's kind of is enticing you to expand into the UK?

00:26:19.285 --> 00:26:26.030
Yeah, so actually we went live in the UK two to three months ago, so we started in the US.

00:26:26.030 --> 00:26:28.992
Canada came about a year ago.

00:26:28.992 --> 00:26:37.755
So Canada, we're getting about 5% to 10% of our US sales but our profit margins are pretty strong.

00:26:37.755 --> 00:26:43.230
So we sit at about 25% profit margin net profit, which we're pretty happy with.

00:26:43.230 --> 00:26:50.155
Sales are low, but that's been one we were able to transition into very easily and was profitable from the get-go.

00:26:51.065 --> 00:26:53.213
The UK so far has been more challenging.

00:26:53.213 --> 00:26:56.028
So we're just so.

00:26:56.028 --> 00:27:02.815
Tacos is still around that 25% to 30% mark, so we haven't been able to bring it down off that launch level.

00:27:02.815 --> 00:27:04.410
So we're still figuring it out.

00:27:04.410 --> 00:27:06.050
We're stepping it up slowly.

00:27:06.050 --> 00:27:08.232
We haven't been aggressive in that marketplace.

00:27:08.232 --> 00:27:11.375
We've been happy with taking sort of small incremental steps.

00:27:11.375 --> 00:27:18.178
Yeah, we brought a product in there that already had 500 reviews, but it hasn't lit the world on fire from the get-go.

00:27:18.178 --> 00:27:21.353
So that has been a challenge hundred reviews, but it hasn't lit the world on fire from the get-go, so that has been a challenge.

00:27:21.353 --> 00:27:26.329
And then we've got Germany, which we're looking to go live in the next one to two months, so then we can basically serve all of Europe.

00:27:26.329 --> 00:27:34.441
But yeah, that's something I'm looking to problem solve as well is why haven't we got the runs on the board in the UK like we did in Canada?

00:27:34.441 --> 00:27:38.953
Maybe it's probably because it's a more competitive market, but yeah, yeah, we get to figure that out.

00:28:00.164 --> 00:28:00.566
No, that's great.

00:28:00.566 --> 00:28:07.827
I appreciate that a little bit and start to work on that side of the business, that is, you know what are the areas where we can make some inroads and create some efficiencies or address some problems that maybe would push things forward.

00:28:08.810 --> 00:28:12.566
Yeah, I think this is a great time to make that switch over to part two and kind of dive in.

00:28:14.429 --> 00:28:15.130
Let's do it.

00:28:15.130 --> 00:28:21.357
So, Isaac, you said that right now you're in the UK and you said that's been two, three months.

00:28:21.357 --> 00:28:23.240
Yes, Okay.

00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:29.778
So I guess maybe the first question is so you said it's not really lighting things on fire.

00:28:29.778 --> 00:28:32.053
Your tacos is still higher than you would like it to be.

00:28:32.053 --> 00:28:34.231
What was the process?

00:28:34.231 --> 00:28:38.154
Maybe that's a good place to start is what was the process of launching in the UK?

00:28:38.154 --> 00:28:38.836
How did that go?

00:28:38.836 --> 00:28:39.385
What did you?

00:28:39.385 --> 00:28:39.847
How did you do it?

00:28:39.847 --> 00:28:41.153
Yeah, that's a good place to start is what was the process of?

00:28:41.173 --> 00:28:41.554
launching in the UK.

00:28:41.554 --> 00:28:41.875
How did that go?

00:28:41.875 --> 00:28:42.257
What, what did you?

00:28:42.257 --> 00:28:42.699
How did you do it?

00:28:42.699 --> 00:28:46.192
Yeah, that's a great question and probably talks to more my overall launch strategy.

00:28:46.192 --> 00:28:53.625
That needs some work and I know, mike, you've got some excellent things you do leading into a launch, which I'm not implementing in any way, shape or form.

00:28:53.625 --> 00:29:00.719
But in the UK we just got the product over there, got it into the marketplace and just started advertising against it.

00:29:00.719 --> 00:29:02.009
We didn't send anything out.

00:29:02.009 --> 00:29:05.295
There was no sophisticated launch strategy around it.

00:29:07.405 --> 00:29:22.838
So this would be a useful question, I think, and that is when you launched in the UK, did you launch under the same ASINs as you were in the US, or did you launch new ASINs for the UK the same ASINs, okay in the US, or did you launch new ASINs for the UK the same ASINs.

00:29:31.565 --> 00:29:34.669
Okay, so your review profile carried over then, yeah, I think 480 of the 520 reviews came across.

00:29:34.669 --> 00:29:51.997
Okay, so I guess then, if your reviews carried over and you've been advertising on that listing, it sounds like at least relatively heavily, to try and push things along what do you feel like has been the missing piece in that process?

00:29:53.287 --> 00:30:05.112
The missing piece is the organic just isn't coming through yet in terms of an output perspective, is the organic just isn't coming through yet in terms of an output perspective.

00:30:05.112 --> 00:30:11.568
So we've got in terms of, if I back up, probably the conversion rate overall that I'm seeing is half of what I'm seeing in the us market.

00:30:11.568 --> 00:30:18.769
And then with the pay-per-click we're getting pay-per-click sales but no organic is coming through yet.

00:30:18.769 --> 00:30:27.130
So we're not really ranking highly or getting those organic sales come through, but also the conversion rate is a fraction of what we're seeing in the US.

00:30:27.130 --> 00:30:29.454
Now that could be price-based.

00:30:29.454 --> 00:30:36.157
When I look at the price disparity in the UK market, it's more significant than the price disparity in the US.

00:30:36.157 --> 00:30:38.295
We are the highest price asset in both but, yeah, there seems to be a bigger price disparity in the US.

00:30:38.295 --> 00:30:44.537
We are the highest price ascent in both but, yeah, there seems to be a bigger price disparity in the UK in order to hit our required profit margins.

00:30:45.105 --> 00:30:45.865
It seems to me.

00:30:45.906 --> 00:31:12.946
I mean, we don't sell in the UK, so that's it's a marketplace that I don't know well, but it is a marketplace that I've talked to a number of sellers about who do sell in the UK marketplace, and I would say that if I had to guess based on what you were just saying, I think you're probably dead on in terms of that price differential being kind of a big deal, not only because the differential is larger.

00:31:13.067 --> 00:31:26.817
So I mean I think it's reasonable to say that if you were in the US selling with a differential that is comparably as large as it is in the UK, your conversion rate would probably be lower in the US as well.

00:31:26.817 --> 00:31:31.112
But more than that I think there actually is.

00:31:31.112 --> 00:31:39.938
It strikes me that there is in the UK more of a price sensitive customer base on Amazon.

00:31:39.938 --> 00:31:44.128
I could be wrong in that, but that's the way that it strikes me.

00:31:44.128 --> 00:31:56.451
And so the fact that it is a larger price differential and that that may be true of the UK audience, that it's a little bit more price sensitive maybe than some Amazon sellers are, that may be the biggest place where you're struggling.

00:31:56.451 --> 00:31:57.233
It's.

00:31:57.233 --> 00:32:00.651
The only way to know is to test the pricing right.

00:32:01.204 --> 00:32:10.597
I was just going to say have you done any price testing yet to see if you lower the price, to see if it increases your volume and what that net profit ends up looking like?

00:32:11.365 --> 00:32:11.986
Yeah, we have.

00:32:11.986 --> 00:32:21.473
So we recently dropped the price by four pounds about two weeks ago, and we did see a spike in sales and a better conversion rate.

00:32:21.473 --> 00:32:28.535
So we're just trying to play around with what's that optimal price to maximize profit and then make that assessment Cool.

00:32:28.535 --> 00:32:30.971
Is that worth continuing this product in this marketplace?

00:32:31.292 --> 00:32:32.195
Right, right.

00:32:32.195 --> 00:32:35.393
I'm also curious and maybe you've already looked at this.

00:32:35.393 --> 00:32:40.691
Have you looked at, if there's any, and I know the language isn't, you know, drastically different?

00:32:40.691 --> 00:32:40.994
Looked at this?

00:32:40.994 --> 00:32:41.439
Have you looked at, if there's any, and I know the language isn't drastically different?

00:32:41.439 --> 00:32:51.278
But as far as your keywords, that maybe there's some keywords that either aren't indexing or maybe not as relevant in the UK market as they are in the US or Canada.

00:32:52.506 --> 00:32:53.287
It's a good point.

00:32:53.287 --> 00:32:57.496
We haven't done a full-blown analysis on it, but we are.

00:32:57.496 --> 00:33:01.068
So my PPC guy is assessing what's working and then tinkering around with those campaigns based on it.

00:33:01.068 --> 00:33:02.816
We are, so my ppc guy is assessing, look what's working and then tinkering around with those campaigns based on it.

00:33:02.895 --> 00:33:17.876
But I haven't been adjusted the listing and prioritized the title based on that data yet one thing I might recommend to you, isaac too, is just simply having if you haven't already maybe you have and you could speak to that but just having some.

00:33:17.876 --> 00:33:25.704
You know it's going to sound a little strange because I mean US, uk, they're both English speaking, but native UK individuals.

00:33:25.704 --> 00:33:33.888
Looking over the listing itself just to see if you know there's some wording there that maybe is a little bit more Americanized.

00:33:33.888 --> 00:33:36.335
You know that just isn't resonating over there.

00:33:36.335 --> 00:33:44.296
I think it's safe to say that we have at least one friend in common who you probably could go to and he could look that over for you and let you know.

00:33:44.296 --> 00:33:49.328
But that would be, I mean, if you haven't done that, I think that would be definitely a good suggestion.

00:33:50.332 --> 00:33:51.275
Yeah, great suggestion.

00:33:51.275 --> 00:33:59.696
I mean the benefit to the UK is I use the same language as Australia, so I actually had to learn US English for when I made my US listings.

00:33:59.696 --> 00:34:06.891
But you're right, there's probably cultural differences there which I was weighing up on before I went live of how to implement it.

00:34:06.891 --> 00:34:15.309
But definitely get in the eyes of somebody, a local, and say, look, does this resonate with you as an avatar from that country that maybe I'm missing the beat on?

00:34:16.050 --> 00:35:01.068
It might be worth also asking them whether you know because maybe I'm completely off base you know, but in terms of the price sensitivity of UK buyers, you know, versus US buyers, especially if you can find the one individual that I was thinking of that you might connect with, I know they're just moving into the US market so they don't really have a lot to compare between the two, but I know there are a number of other, you know UK sellers that that are certainly selling on the US as well and they might have a better, a better gauge you know for just how much price sensitivity there is in the UK versus US and whether you know just how significant that is for you when you when you made that price adjustment, you said that you saw an increase in conversion, you saw a price spike.

00:35:01.728 --> 00:35:09.630
Did you leave that price adjustment in place to see whether it remains stable in terms of the sales level and the conversion rate?

00:35:09.630 --> 00:35:09.769
Or?

00:35:09.911 --> 00:35:14.472
did you move it back?

00:35:14.472 --> 00:35:30.635
The added data point to that is the price I had before we were running a coupon in the amount of the drop we did so as an example, we're running at 55 and we had a $5, £5 coupon.

00:35:30.635 --> 00:35:35.458
Then, post the drop, we dropped to $49.99.

00:35:35.458 --> 00:35:45.181
So we dropped that five and removed the coupon and I found that the price drop without the coupon performed better, even though the net price is the same.

00:35:45.181 --> 00:35:50.282
The performance of having that striped through and the lower price was better.

00:35:50.282 --> 00:35:53.722
So technically we haven't really even dropped the price.

00:35:53.722 --> 00:35:57.443
So I could probably drop it a bit further and experiment what happens then.

00:35:57.443 --> 00:36:03.735
But yeah, dropping the price and removing the coupon perform better than just having a coupon.

00:36:05.079 --> 00:36:22.528
Something that we've been thinking about doing with our listings this season and we're a little bit late to the party to do it, but I think we're still going to run it is we're going to include a for lack of a better way to say it kind of a bonus product with our current product.

00:36:22.528 --> 00:36:32.251
One of the reasons we hadn't done it yet is because we were deciding whether we wanted to leave it as a separate shipment so that they had to register the warranty in order to get the free product as well.

00:36:32.251 --> 00:36:46.528
The problem is the fulfillment on it is a little bit pricier than we would like in order to make the numbers work, whereas if we include it in the product packaging, then it's much less expensive for us and I still think we might get a much better CTR and CBR on it.

00:36:46.528 --> 00:36:54.012
But essentially, what we're likely to do is we're going to add a complimentary product that anybody who buys our product would need.

00:36:54.012 --> 00:37:04.699
It's only going to cost us a couple of bucks to include it in the packaging, but it's worth between $10 and $15 to a customer in terms of what they would generally pay on Amazon for that same product.

00:37:04.699 --> 00:37:10.032
So the estimation is, of course, that number one.

00:37:10.092 --> 00:37:34.278
We can advertise that in our main listing, then, because it comes as a part of the product and secondarily to that, because it can be in the main image, not only can we increase our conversion rate because they're getting more value for the same dollar, but we should also be able to improve our click-through rate.

00:37:34.278 --> 00:37:36.864
We haven't tested it yet, but I mean, all signs point to the fact that it should work.

00:37:36.864 --> 00:37:42.987
How effectively it'll work, we don't know.

00:37:42.987 --> 00:37:44.090
But I'm curious in terms of your product.

00:37:44.090 --> 00:37:53.092
Is there something that you could include with the product that is a very minimal expense to you but would still have a fairly decent you know value to the end user?

00:37:53.092 --> 00:38:01.679
That might put you in a better position, say, in that you know even specifically in that UK market, where that price disparity is you know more of an issue, you know.

00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:04.027
Do you think there's something that you might be able to do with that?

00:38:05.072 --> 00:38:06.719
Yeah, it's a great suggestion, Mike.

00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:09.608
It's something I'm working on at the moment as well in a couple of products.

00:38:09.608 --> 00:38:12.275
So one lane we're taking.

00:38:12.275 --> 00:38:13.538
So we're in the kitchen category.

00:38:13.538 --> 00:38:31.257
We're launching a digital recipe journal which is basically where people can log their recipes and has a bunch of helpful information around conversions and ideal cooking temperatures, and that's something that, once we've built, it is zero cost to us to get out to customers.

00:38:31.257 --> 00:38:47.226
We're going to tie it into your warranty program so when customers register for their warranty, they'll get this as an email to them and a link they can use um, and that also entices the warranty sign up as well, so we can have them on the list.

00:38:47.728 --> 00:38:59.530
But yeah, it's something we want to experiment with, the same way you have, and actually promote it on the listing and say, hey, you'll get this free recipe journal with it and test a, b, test those images, those titles.

00:38:59.530 --> 00:39:02.306
If we include that, what does that do to click through?

00:39:02.306 --> 00:39:04.050
What does that do to conversion?

00:39:04.050 --> 00:39:06.197
And then the other one we're looking at.

00:39:06.197 --> 00:39:10.077
So benefits of actually going to china and visiting the supplier.

00:39:10.278 --> 00:39:15.635
We're including a bonus, currently planning to not advertise on the listing at all and have it as a surprise and delight.

00:39:15.635 --> 00:39:31.764
So that way, when they open it up and they get it, it's sort of like an unexpected bonus to shift that, create that disparity between expectation and reality and have a positive reality compared to what they expected, sure, and potentially lead on to positive reviews.

00:39:31.764 --> 00:39:49.432
Then, down the line, if we believe look, actually we were seeing a lot of great reviews on this we actually want to promote it at the front end, do a similar process, as you mentioned, which is put it in the photo, put it in the listing, and say, hey, this is a bonus to try and tie some more customers in, right?

00:39:50.235 --> 00:39:50.835
no, that's great.

00:39:50.835 --> 00:39:54.512
I'll be interested to hear how that goes.

00:39:54.512 --> 00:39:55.195
You know like what?

00:39:55.195 --> 00:40:00.353
What kind of changes you see in terms of ctr, cbr or or in terms of registration rates?

00:40:00.353 --> 00:40:01.356
That'll be interesting to see.

00:40:02.204 --> 00:40:10.244
Yeah, it'll be interesting just to see the comparison between the digital bonus versus the physical bonus and see how they perform differently.

00:40:11.646 --> 00:40:17.351
Do you think, isaac, that is one thing that is sometimes difficult.

00:40:17.351 --> 00:40:36.565
You know, with something digital like that that you're offering as an additional bonus, how do you anticipate that you will incorporate that into your main image in a way that's easy for the customer to understand what this bonus is that they're receiving?

00:40:36.565 --> 00:40:40.853
You know it's obvious, say, in a smaller image on mobile, which sometimes can be difficult.

00:40:40.853 --> 00:40:42.797
What are your thoughts on that?

00:40:42.797 --> 00:40:44.807
How are you planning on advertising that?

00:40:45.911 --> 00:40:52.632
Yeah, to be totally honest, I hadn't put a huge degree of thought into exactly the strategy around how I promote it.

00:40:52.632 --> 00:40:54.318
I've been really involved in the build.

00:40:54.318 --> 00:40:56.847
It probably would have been worthwhile in that upfront.

00:40:56.847 --> 00:41:04.500
I've seen people do it in the form of whether it's showing a mobile device and showing it like whether it's an application or a digital.

00:41:04.500 --> 00:41:15.807
It's a where it could be like sort of a digital workbook and sort of showing it, trying to make it clear that this is a digital offering by showing it in the context of a computer or a phone.

00:41:15.807 --> 00:41:27.530
Obviously, there's limitations on images on Amazon and what you can show, so it might be a matter of integrating it into the packaging and then showing the packaging as a little snapshot of it there.

00:41:27.530 --> 00:41:31.367
But yeah, we definitely need to play around with some A-B testing to see what lands.

00:41:31.829 --> 00:41:36.998
Any suggestions on your end of how you'd tie in a digital offering.

00:41:36.998 --> 00:41:38.030
Digital bonus.

00:41:38.514 --> 00:41:44.253
I mean, I think you're on the right track, as far as what I would do is just make sure that it's abundantly clear that it's virtual.

00:41:44.253 --> 00:41:53.432
So kind of getting back to that concept that you mentioned about you know making sure that you have a positive reality compared to expectations.

00:41:53.432 --> 00:42:13.175
So I think you know having, in the context of you know, mobile phone or computer screen and making sure that you're using that word digital and probably trying to think of because, Mike, you actually I haven't done it, it's been a while since I've done set up one like this.

00:42:13.175 --> 00:42:19.994
So, as far as what that messaging looks like, and to make sure that they know it's digital, because you offer a digital download, don't you, Mike, with some of your products.

00:42:20.556 --> 00:42:28.887
We do, but we don't advertise any of that in our I mean, sometimes we put it in the bullet points, but we never, we don't really put it into the images anymore.

00:42:28.887 --> 00:42:38.409
We did previously have something but even though it was technically digital, back then when we put it in the listing we actually had it on a disc.

00:42:38.409 --> 00:42:43.097
I mean that was far enough back where somebody might actually have used that right.

00:42:43.097 --> 00:42:46.070
Obviously, you can't do that now, so it doesn't really apply much.

00:42:46.070 --> 00:43:03.353
But one of the things that I was thinking, isaac, was I wonder obviously you're going to have more invested in this digital journal thing than you will necessarily have invested in, say, this additional physical item that you might include.

00:43:03.353 --> 00:43:08.644
Right, a lot more work, some upfront investment in trying to put this thing together.

00:43:08.644 --> 00:43:16.646
But I'm curious if maybe you might find a better result overall, like a better holistic result.

00:43:16.686 --> 00:43:54.307
Let's say, if what you were advertising in your listing was the physical add-on, but then when they receive your item and there's the encouragement for a registration that's when you're promoting as a, as an extra bonus, you know, for registration, you know it it feels like that order of events makes a little bit more sense, just because number one, it's easier to put a physical item into your listing and have it be obvious that it's a physical item, a physical add on right.

00:43:54.869 --> 00:44:02.050
You don't run into so many potential issues where either customers are going to be frustrated because they thought it was physical, turns out it's digital.

00:44:02.050 --> 00:44:02.733
You know whatever.

00:44:02.733 --> 00:44:10.344
You don't run into potential issues with Amazon who's saying, hey, you can't advertise that in your listing, it's not a real thing, you know whatever.

00:44:10.344 --> 00:44:15.838
I just feel like you might find an easier road forward in that way.

00:44:15.838 --> 00:44:23.293
I'm not saying don't test it, you know, maybe it turns out that the electronic journal does great, maybe you find a good way to implement that.

00:44:23.293 --> 00:44:34.731
But in my mind it feels like it makes more sense to advertise the physical bonus on the front end and then using that electronic bonus on the back end to encourage that registration.

00:44:35.092 --> 00:44:48.634
Yeah, it's a great idea, and something I've thought on as well is how do we show that this electronic item has real value and the way we're building it is so that it can be printed and created into a physical journal as well.

00:44:48.634 --> 00:45:05.077
So what we're hoping to do is say let's actually launch the physical journal and then have it as a bonus, real offering of when you buy any of our other products you get a digital version of this journal that's valued at $30 physically.

00:45:05.739 --> 00:45:12.117
So that way they can actually see the real value and I'm not just saying hey, you're getting a digital journal that's worth $30.

00:45:12.117 --> 00:45:21.751
You can see it on Amazon, it's selling, it's got good reviews and you can get the digital version, which essentially has all the same functionality in a digital format, for free.

00:45:22.914 --> 00:45:38.947
How much would it cost you, isaac, if you were to actually try and put the physical version in somebody's hand directly, like an actual journal that was printed?

00:45:38.947 --> 00:45:42.016
Do you know what it would cost to actually put that in their hand?

00:45:42.016 --> 00:45:43.119
I don't know.

00:45:43.119 --> 00:45:44.965
I'm curious.

00:45:44.965 --> 00:45:59.724
The only reason I ask is because there is the opportunity in that that maybe that also would be an encouragement for that registration, because ultimately that's what you're trying to do, right, like?

00:45:59.724 --> 00:46:00.949
I mean, you're trying to build a list.

00:46:00.949 --> 00:46:08.750
Obviously you want to sell products and you want to be profitable, but you want the list and so everything that you can do to encourage that registration is, of course, in your favor.

00:46:09.510 --> 00:46:17.815
You know, if you were in a position where you could find a way to fairly inexpensively put the physical version in their hands.

00:46:17.815 --> 00:46:28.614
So, in other words, I guess what I'm saying is I'm trying to find a way that you can put the physical aspect of it in your listing, potentially right.

00:46:28.614 --> 00:46:41.329
And if they don't have to pay for it, if it's part of the product and all they have to do is just give you their address, right, they're just registering and giving the address so you have a place to ship it, then you can still say it's essentially part of the product, like there's no additional cost.

00:46:41.329 --> 00:46:43.057
You paid the money, you get it right.

00:46:43.057 --> 00:46:52.192
Then you could advertise the physical version of it on your listing right and then you could potentially use that on the backend as a way to gain.

00:46:52.693 --> 00:46:53.998
You know those registrations.

00:46:53.998 --> 00:46:59.407
You probably would increase your registration rate, you would get their physical addresses out of that, you know.

00:46:59.407 --> 00:47:13.577
Increase your registration rate, you would get their physical addresses out of that you know even more readily because you got to ship the you know the journal and then the electronic version ends up being more the add-on right, like I get the physical but I also have the electronic version, as opposed to the reverse of that.

00:47:13.577 --> 00:47:16.179
You know, maybe that ends up being a better road.

00:47:16.219 --> 00:47:18.280
I'm not sure I think it's a great suggestion.

00:47:18.280 --> 00:47:25.427
I don't think it's stuck up from a profitability standpoint, but one way I could see it working.

00:47:25.427 --> 00:47:27.632
Have you guys played around with virtual bundles at all?

00:47:27.632 --> 00:47:31.217
Yes, and have you found it?

00:47:33.224 --> 00:47:35.108
I found so they've improved virtual bundles a lot.

00:47:35.108 --> 00:47:41.481
I really like how Amazon now does virtual bundles.

00:47:42.351 --> 00:47:43.235
It works well for us.

00:47:43.235 --> 00:48:00.177
We do quite a number of virtual bundles and of course we've talked about it on the podcast a number of times, and that is, you know, one of the big benefits, of course, is real estate on Amazon, but we do sell, like I mean, they're very profitable for us, you know, and it obviously allows us to sell a much wider range of products in one individual sale.

00:48:00.177 --> 00:48:02.269
You know, and it obviously allows us to sell a much wider range of products in one individual sale.

00:48:02.269 --> 00:48:15.862
You know, we actually have quite a lot of, I mean, I would say, of our total revenue, it's possible that as much as 10% is virtual bundles that we sell.

00:48:15.862 --> 00:48:17.657
It might be even a little higher than that.

00:48:17.657 --> 00:48:19.516
So, I mean, we do relatively well with them.

00:48:19.516 --> 00:48:26.021
Now, you know, in a situation like this I'm not exactly sure, I'm curious what was your thought on that?

00:48:26.021 --> 00:48:28.974
You know, in terms of how you want to implement that?

00:48:29.896 --> 00:48:33.853
Well, whether it be with this journal or whether it be with other products.

00:48:33.853 --> 00:48:40.338
So something I'm working on in how I'm building my brand now is around complementary products or products that actually work well together.

00:48:40.338 --> 00:48:58.427
Being in the knife holder market, it's practical to make knives and offering those as well, and then ultimately look at and the drive for all of this was when I understood my metrics and saw that one of the key ones was around average order value and that could increase my net margin.

00:48:58.427 --> 00:49:06.083
So higher I could increase my average order value and the bigger basket of goods I could create, that led to complementary products.

00:49:06.083 --> 00:49:11.958
And then how best to get complementary products in the same cart, my eyes went to virtual bundles.

00:49:11.958 --> 00:49:21.235
Yeah, that's sort of like the train of thought that led me there, and I'm just exploring whether that'd be the best way to move forward and actually promote that basket.

00:49:27.329 --> 00:49:28.251
Well, maybe that's part of the difficulty with.

00:49:28.251 --> 00:49:36.458
You know, I made that suggestion of the electronic journal becoming more of a physical journal on the front end and the electronic being, you know, just an additional bonus Fulfillment on that.

00:49:36.458 --> 00:49:38.302
Obviously there's an expense there.

00:49:38.302 --> 00:49:47.701
I think there might be a fairly inexpensive way to potentially do that, you know, using Amazon Publishing or something like you know something along those lines.

00:49:47.701 --> 00:49:58.177
But I think the bigger issue there is more so the fact that you only have so much availability of you know to sell right now.

00:49:58.177 --> 00:50:12.735
So it's like you'd have an expense on the front end to get this registration, like you're putting this amount forward to send these out, and not a whole lot on the back end to sell them to make up for that expense.

00:50:12.735 --> 00:50:19.115
As your product line fleshes itself out and you've got additional products to sell, then that starts making more sense.

00:50:19.115 --> 00:50:24.490
But you know, right now maybe that is a difficult pill to swallow.

00:50:24.931 --> 00:50:26.175
So here's something to think about.

00:50:26.175 --> 00:50:33.702
Now, obviously you'd have to look at the numbers and I'm not super familiar with, like what you mentioned, mike, amazon, you know self-publishing.

00:50:33.702 --> 00:50:37.990
What they charge for that, by the time you know you have it printed and fulfilled and all the rest of it.

00:50:37.990 --> 00:50:43.664
Let's say you know you're selling your book're selling your book for your retail is $30.

00:50:43.664 --> 00:51:03.771
If you did a virtual bundle where you had a physical copy of that, even if it was at 15 or 20, might be worth doing in the sense of now people see that on your regular listing and, like you were talking about, it really helps anchor that price on your regular listing to say, okay, I could buy them.

00:51:03.931 --> 00:51:05.293
And you never know people might.

00:51:05.293 --> 00:51:28.440
You know certain percentage of people they just love having things, would rather have things hard copy, so they might feel like they're getting a deal by getting that book that you're already producing for free for 15 or 20 bucks, along with the product and then also kind of helps set that anchor to where, if you decide you know they can get it virtually for free, they work it down their head oh, retail is, you know, $30.

00:51:28.440 --> 00:51:33.958
I could get this on the bundle at 15 or 20, but here Isaac is giving it to me for free.

00:51:35.751 --> 00:51:38.280
Yeah just creating a saved value all around.

00:51:38.789 --> 00:51:44.139
Yeah, no, it's a fair point, John, I mean it's so that might be one way to use virtual bundles to your favor.

00:51:44.139 --> 00:51:49.059
It wouldn't be that difficult to set something like that up realistically, and you don't really.

00:51:49.059 --> 00:51:58.739
I mean, the virtual bundle then just becomes icy, you know, like it's really just there for price anchoring, and if you happen to sell some of them, great you know, but it's really only there for that purpose.

00:51:59.581 --> 00:52:02.043
Very helpful If you guys are happy to.

00:52:02.043 --> 00:52:04.887
I wouldn't mind changing lanes and discussing returns a bit.

00:52:04.887 --> 00:52:08.134
That's probably been one of the key pain points in the business at the moment.

00:52:08.134 --> 00:52:11.072
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely yeah.

00:52:11.072 --> 00:52:16.998
So since going live with that product I mentioned, we've probably been at a return rate of about 11%.

00:52:16.998 --> 00:52:23.081
It's a high-priced item in competitors but I'm finding that's probably higher than a lot of the competitors.

00:52:23.081 --> 00:52:31.699
I got a not a great badge from Amazon recently on one of my SKUs which says this is a frequently returned item.

00:52:31.699 --> 00:52:36.057
That's one that recently popped up on there, so that's not helping conversion.

00:52:36.057 --> 00:52:40.737
It hasn't hindered it much, surprisingly, but it seems like it may have dipped a little bit.

00:52:40.737 --> 00:52:51.195
There's various reasons, like just around expectations of customers, the size of the product, which I've done work to better adjust expectations on that.

00:52:51.255 --> 00:52:59.842
In terms of, on the listing, there's been missing hardware, so mounting hardware, which is quite odd because inspections haven't shown anything like that.

00:52:59.842 --> 00:53:06.762
So I'm wondering if that's returned items that Amazon are then reselling and the hardware is missing.

00:53:06.762 --> 00:53:14.884
I know you guys mentioned I think it's PLP in the past, amazon's- PLS, PLS sorry.

00:53:15.634 --> 00:53:17.469
Product Lifecycle Support.

00:53:20.097 --> 00:53:21.942
Yeah, so I've started to work with them on that.

00:53:21.942 --> 00:53:37.532
I just wanted to discuss any other solutions that you guys would recommend, whether it's a solution to store hardware locally in the US in a way to fulfill that out to customers to prevent returns or any other way you'd work to get that return rate down.

00:53:38.994 --> 00:53:51.273
Well, I mean, first of all, setting up with PLS, I think is a big key, like I really do think you're going to reduce your return rate that way, because you will have an opportunity for customers to connect with you.

00:53:51.273 --> 00:53:57.791
I also think that how you set up PLS will be a big part of that process.

00:53:57.791 --> 00:54:04.284
So knowing that PLS provides you with an opportunity for anybody who's listening.

00:54:04.304 --> 00:54:05.974
That doesn't actually know what.

00:54:05.994 --> 00:54:06.896
PLS is so.

00:54:06.896 --> 00:54:11.773
Amazon set up product lifecycle support and they don't really advertise it.

00:54:11.773 --> 00:54:21.822
There is at least one company out there that right now sellers are paying fairly good money to to get themselves listed within product lifecycle support.

00:54:21.822 --> 00:54:23.271
And you can actually do it for free.

00:54:23.271 --> 00:54:25.637
You just contact them directly by email.

00:54:25.797 --> 00:54:27.402
So, but essentially what?

00:54:27.442 --> 00:54:47.161
it does is it allows for customers directly to contact you directly right through amazon's website, and so when they go in and they and they're looking to hit return on your item, they're presented like Amazon, specifically presents them with whatever troubleshooting guides.

00:54:47.161 --> 00:54:56.177
You might provide them with whatever links or phone numbers or videos that you might have to help them with assembly or disassembly or replacement.

00:54:56.177 --> 00:55:04.525
You know pretty much anything that you think would help answer whatever questions those customers are coming with or whatever reasons they might be frustrated with the product.

00:55:04.525 --> 00:55:08.721
You can answer those questions right then and there and it does reduce return rates.

00:55:08.721 --> 00:55:10.690
So that in and of itself will help a lot.

00:55:10.849 --> 00:55:20.173
But I would think through what are the pain points that customers are experiencing that are likely causing the returns?

00:55:20.173 --> 00:55:35.652
What is the easiest way that you could provide troubleshooting information to them directly on Amazon, whether it's in videos or you know they also will do it in such a way where it's kind of a, it's like a chat flow almost.

00:55:35.652 --> 00:55:39.181
You know like they click hey, this is my problem and you provide the solution.

00:55:39.181 --> 00:55:43.681
You can have numerous problems listed out standard questions of customers.

00:55:43.681 --> 00:55:51.902
Make sure you flesh that out as much as possible so that they don't necessarily have to contact you only because customers would rather solve that on their own.

00:55:51.902 --> 00:55:53.914
A lot of times they don't want to have to contact you.

00:55:53.914 --> 00:56:09.164
But in terms of that issue with the parts, I really do think and John, you could chime in on this, but I am fully convinced that that is returned items that Amazon has put back into your bin to sell, that somebody just didn't include the hardware with.

00:56:09.704 --> 00:56:11.045
Yeah, and that's problematic.

00:56:11.045 --> 00:56:26.405
I think you're probably right on that one, and I think this is one of those cases where what I like to say is that you know for sellers, this is a great example of something that's not your fault but does end up becoming, unfortunately, your responsibility, just with the way that Amazon functions.

00:56:26.405 --> 00:56:42.764
So I guess a couple of questions, and this might seem a little bit silly, but I just want to double check Are you looking at your voice of customers when you look at those returns, like what your most common return items are or what the most common reasons for those returns are?

00:56:43.250 --> 00:56:57.702
Yeah, I'm seeing invoice a customer, but they're quite surprising some of those answers Like that's where I found people were unsure of the size of the product, when it seems to my eyes it's quite clearly listed in the listing and in the title.

00:56:57.702 --> 00:57:01.273
But that being said, maybe I'll get a second set of eyes and see.

00:57:01.273 --> 00:57:03.657
Look, is that clear enough?

00:57:03.657 --> 00:57:10.365
The missing hardware is more coming up in reviews and return reasons once I've done into it.

00:57:11.030 --> 00:57:11.331
Okay.

00:57:12.594 --> 00:57:27.365
So then the other question I have is as a part of your product is there, because I think the product lifecycle support is probably the easiest, you know, kind of top level thing in order to start solving that problem.

00:57:27.887 --> 00:57:44.380
But then the other thing that I would think about doing is is whether it's you know on your packaging somewhere, an insert or whatever more, and ideally you know something in video format, because that's you know how people like to receive information.

00:57:44.773 --> 00:57:45.989
That's probably the most useful.

00:57:45.989 --> 00:58:06.699
But then, thinking about those most common questions, so if it's hey, I'm, you know missing parts, okay, so here's exactly where I go and explains to them how they send in that request for those missing parts and, quite frankly, that probably needs to be directly through your website rather than than Amazon to solve that problem.

00:58:06.699 --> 00:58:31.389
And I mean what I would look at is your top probably two to three return items to try to see if you can make an impact on those first, rather than trying to do everything, but thinking about how you can make that as seamless for the customer, understanding that, no matter what you do, you're going to have a certain amount of these that are going to be, you know, probably returns that are going to be missing parts and those types of things.

00:58:31.389 --> 00:58:35.621
So what can you do on your end in order to solve that for the customer when they do encounter it?

00:58:36.710 --> 00:58:41.039
If you, if you don't mind my asking Isaac, what, what is the?

00:58:41.039 --> 00:58:44.615
What is your return rate right now, Like what's your average return rate?

00:58:44.615 --> 00:58:47.338
Well, okay, you have multiple products.

00:58:47.338 --> 00:58:50.400
Yes, Is it across all?

00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:53.260
Because they're all kind of variations of the same product, correct?

00:58:54.429 --> 00:58:55.474
Yeah, yeah they are.

00:58:55.474 --> 00:58:59.802
So they're different materials and they appeal to slightly different sub-niches.

00:58:59.802 --> 00:59:09.762
On that original product, I launched the return rates at 11% and then the next product I launched, which appeals to a slightly different niche.

00:59:09.762 --> 00:59:18.873
We addressed a key functional issue that was driving a significant amount of returns in the original one and we got it down to 8%.

00:59:18.873 --> 00:59:23.483
So we addressed that 3% big opportunity in the next product.

00:59:23.483 --> 00:59:28.951
But there's still 8% there and probably the missing hardware is probably a significant one now.

00:59:30.172 --> 00:59:32.277
So yeah, so I would definitely.

00:59:32.277 --> 00:59:38.871
If missing hardware is one of the big ones, then one of the things that so okay.

00:59:38.871 --> 00:59:39.751
So here's the issue.

00:59:39.751 --> 01:00:09.996
If you think about it, you know, in terms of the numbers, if the largest percentage of that 8% return rate, let's say, is missing hardware, then if you're looking at that and you're saying we've been doing the inspections and when we do the inspections, you know, for quality control, we're not finding that to be an issue, then the only way that that likely could really happen is if Amazon is putting products back into circulation that shouldn't be.

01:00:09.996 --> 01:00:15.592
But those products that they're putting back into circulation were returns, right.

01:00:15.592 --> 01:00:36.945
So if you basically just turn off Amazon's ability to put those back into your bin, like just say no, like they're disposable, right, you might actually be better off in that scenario, even though you're going to lose some money on that, because you probably will have some items that could have been resold.

01:00:36.945 --> 01:00:39.034
You know, maybe you get them sent.

01:00:39.034 --> 01:00:43.277
Like there's a company that we used and there's other ones out there.

01:00:43.679 --> 01:01:02.896
Central Virginia prep, I think, is the company where we had all of our returns sent to them, instead of having Amazon put anything back into inventory as new, and then we would have central Virginia prep, look them over, make sure everything was good.

01:01:02.896 --> 01:01:07.221
They could send them back in if they were new and everything was there you know they had.

01:01:07.221 --> 01:01:08.914
You know you can give them additional parts.

01:01:08.914 --> 01:01:13.050
They can re-kit and recreate it as new and send it back in.

01:01:13.050 --> 01:01:27.842
You would probably save a massive percentage of your returns by doing that and then you wouldn't lose too much, because then again you can just have those items you know, just you know, put out to central Virginia and then they'd ship them back in again.

01:01:27.842 --> 01:01:32.811
You lose something, but at least you still make some money on those and you'd really reduce your return rate, I think.

01:01:34.094 --> 01:01:42.590
So two other things I'm going to, just kind of ideas I'm going to put on that One is have you looked at your competitors and product opportunity explorer?

01:01:42.590 --> 01:01:48.554
Because there's a new section in there that's I think it's been out for three or four months, but it gives kind of customer sentiment.

01:01:48.554 --> 01:01:53.615
So you can kind of see, hey, are my customers, are my competitors having the same issue?

01:01:53.615 --> 01:01:58.155
To get kind of a gauge of like is this an, is this a me thing, or is this an Amazon thing?

01:01:59.036 --> 01:02:27.755
The other thing and this might be I'm going to throw this idea out there and it might be a terrible idea, but I'm going to do it anyway which is, I wonder, you know, one way to solve that problem might be to turn it into a little bit of an Easter egg hunt for customers in the sense of like, hey, if you find one of ours where there's, you know, hardware missing, we've got a special prize for you or something like that, where you can turn something that's frankly kind of negative and annoying for the customers into something that's positive and just be human about it in the sense of like.

01:02:27.755 --> 01:02:33.766
We know that it's probably Amazon's fault, but just, hey, you know, our humans are doing the best they can.

01:02:33.766 --> 01:02:34.972
Unfortunately they're not perfect.

01:02:34.972 --> 01:02:51.045
If you find something where your hardware is missing, you know we've got a special prize for you, so then you're kind of might be worth thinking about how you can reverse that psychology of taking something negative and turning it into you know, something human and something positive.

01:02:51.065 --> 01:02:56.813
Yeah, they're great suggestions and I think to tie them out I need to also know how to then make it right.

01:02:56.813 --> 01:03:10.766
So, giving the gift giving prize, giving the gift giving prize and even in POS support, is there a logistical answer to have, let's say, all the hardware stored somewhere and I can ship just the hardware out to customers?

01:03:10.766 --> 01:03:15.577
Because currently what I've been doing is refunding the full product or sending a full replacement.

01:03:15.577 --> 01:03:23.059
I feel like I could work it a lot better if I could offer whether it be a part refund and we'll send you the hardware.

01:03:23.059 --> 01:03:25.737
So you have that, because currently I don't have that in place.

01:03:25.737 --> 01:03:27.494
I do have backtracking in place?

01:03:27.576 --> 01:03:28.418
Is it just screws?

01:03:28.418 --> 01:03:29.954
How large is the hardware?

01:03:30.833 --> 01:03:32.559
It's tiny, just screws and anchors.

01:03:34.570 --> 01:03:37.650
Fulfillment can be a little bit problematic, you know.

01:03:37.650 --> 01:03:40.815
I mean, obviously the screws themselves cost hardly anything.

01:03:40.815 --> 01:03:42.739
The fulfillment's where you're going to get eaten.

01:03:42.739 --> 01:03:50.061
But it's way less expensive to, you know, to send fulfillment on a screw than it is to send out an entire new, you know, package.

01:03:50.061 --> 01:03:58.514
So you could certainly have, you know, a 3PL you know in the States, you know that would hang on to that.

01:03:58.514 --> 01:04:00.059
You know, hardware for you and ship.

01:04:00.139 --> 01:04:06.967
The only problem that you run into, I feel like there is, most of the 3PLs are going to like you to have a certain level of inventory with them.

01:04:06.967 --> 01:04:14.739
You know they don't like to have a customer where they ship one thing out every three or four days, you know, and it's this little tiny package of screws.

01:04:14.739 --> 01:04:28.840
So that would be the most difficult part of this process, I think would be, you know, if there's not much volume there, it's probably going to be hard to find a 3PL that would do it so logistically.

01:04:28.840 --> 01:04:29.722
That's where I find it's problematic.

01:04:29.722 --> 01:04:33.853
What you might do is, you know, post in some of the chat groups you know, for Amazon sellers and just post that very same thing.

01:04:33.853 --> 01:04:38.543
You know like, hey, I think you know I would like to try, and, you know, fulfill.

01:04:38.543 --> 01:04:45.478
You know, these little packages of screws I'm going to I'm likely only going to ship one every so often, you know, is there.

01:04:45.478 --> 01:04:48.615
Is there a way for me to do that and see if anybody has any any thoughts on it?

01:04:49.639 --> 01:04:50.362
Yeah, Good call.

01:04:50.362 --> 01:04:56.097
Are the screws pretty standard size you can pick up at any hardware store, or are they specialists?

01:04:56.097 --> 01:04:57.782
Okay, I'm.

01:04:57.782 --> 01:04:58.831
I mean it may not be.

01:04:58.831 --> 01:05:00.635
Again, I'm going to throw out an idea.

01:05:00.635 --> 01:05:02.581
It might be a bad idea, but I'm going to throw it out anyway.

01:05:02.581 --> 01:05:16.893
I wonder if you could do something like if you're not saying you don't need a super scalable solution, you just need one for kind of those one-off situations, Even something like TaskRabbit, where you just say, okay, you know, I need you to go pick up this size of screws and mail it.

01:05:17.432 --> 01:05:26.378
Yeah, you could Honestly you could, honestly, you could do something like that Regularly pick up 50 packets of it 50 versions and then mail it to these as we require.

01:05:26.378 --> 01:05:30.239
It's probably the cheapest solution and refunding full products, isn't it?

01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:47.206
And honestly, you know, I mean realistically like if you were to implement some of the other things that we were already talking about, you know, say something like Central Virginia Prep, where you redoing the packaging and getting it sent back in again, you really probably wouldn't, you know, run into too many issues like that.

01:05:47.206 --> 01:05:56.413
And if you were to implement a strategy of hey, you know, the Easter egg kind of a thing, you might have hardly any situations at all where you even have to deal with it.

01:05:56.413 --> 01:06:00.998
And in those that you do, you know you could implement something like that we actually have had in certain situations.

01:06:00.998 --> 01:06:13.661
We've even just said to a customer like, you know, we'll, we'll refund, you know, five or $10 of the original purchase price and go this is exactly what you need from the hardware store.

01:06:13.661 --> 01:06:16.195
You know, would you be interested in just picking it up?

01:06:16.195 --> 01:06:18.391
Because then you can have it today and you'll be done.

01:06:18.391 --> 01:06:21.534
You know, like and you can save five or $10 on the product.

01:06:21.873 --> 01:06:32.523
A lot of customers are perfectly willing to accept that and it would be one of those things where you can just offer it, you know, just say, hey, you know we'd be willing give them the choice, right, like they've contacted you.

01:06:32.523 --> 01:06:34.224
Hey, we can do this one of three ways.

01:06:34.224 --> 01:06:40.170
Either we can refund you five bucks you know, on your thing, this is exactly what you need.

01:06:40.170 --> 01:06:52.931
You can pick it up at the hardware store, or we can ship this out to you, but it's going to take a week to get to you, or whatever, and a lot of customers, just so that they get it sooner, will take that refund right up front and just go buy the screws.

01:06:53.271 --> 01:06:54.333
Yeah, great point.

01:06:54.333 --> 01:07:02.320
I'm really interested to see, once I implement this into PLS, what happens to return rates and refund rates if I have those solutions there.

01:07:02.320 --> 01:07:04.114
If we have, hey, is your hardware missing?

01:07:04.114 --> 01:07:11.418
Contact us, we'll do a partial refund and these are the exact screws you need to buy from the store and see what impact that has.

01:07:12.260 --> 01:07:18.634
Yeah, I really think you're going to reduce that rate a lot and, honestly, that's going to help you a lot with Amazon, because Amazon doesn't like high returns either.

01:07:18.634 --> 01:07:22.922
It is you know, it is a factor you know in terms of how they highlight you.

01:07:22.922 --> 01:07:26.681
You like high return rate products they don't highlight as well.

01:07:26.681 --> 01:07:29.498
So I think it probably will help you in more ways than one.

01:07:31.690 --> 01:07:34.018
So we've got a couple of minutes before I need to wrap up.

01:07:34.018 --> 01:07:38.862
Is there anything else, Isaac, that you wanted to cover before we finish up here?

01:07:40.530 --> 01:07:44.501
Maybe just a little plug for any Australian sellers you have out there.

01:07:44.501 --> 01:07:51.356
There's a grant which I've been taking advantage of for the past three years which really gives us quite an edge.

01:07:51.356 --> 01:08:00.541
It's called the EMDG grant and essentially allows you to claim back 50% of your advertising expense and marketing.

01:08:00.541 --> 01:08:02.934
So any-.

01:08:03.034 --> 01:08:05.217
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Back any backup.

01:08:05.217 --> 01:08:20.684
You need to repeat that like, say that again and and clearly delineate what is this called ampg yeah, emdg grant and allows you 50 up to a threshold.

01:08:20.783 --> 01:08:30.725
So the most you can get back in a financial year is $36,000 Australian, which amounts to about 23, 24 US dollars 24,000.

01:08:30.725 --> 01:08:39.894
But, yeah, you can claim all your marketing, you can claim your PPC costs, you can claim your agency costs and you can do it, I believe, for up to seven years.

01:08:39.894 --> 01:08:44.604
I've been doing it for three and been claiming back 50% of those costs today.

01:08:44.604 --> 01:08:46.061
So it's pretty extraordinary.

01:08:46.061 --> 01:08:55.478
If you're an Aussie seller, so an Australian-based business, even if you're selling in the US, canada I don't sell in Australia at all You'd be silly not to take advantage of that.

01:08:56.510 --> 01:09:00.519
Honestly, that's amazing, that's I mean that's a big deal, man.

01:09:00.519 --> 01:09:03.152
Amazing that's, I mean that's.

01:09:03.152 --> 01:09:03.854
Yeah, that's a big deal, man.

01:09:03.854 --> 01:09:09.313
Hopefully we've got some australian sellers who are listening, because that's, that's a, that's a gold nugget there for sure absolute gold nugget.

01:09:09.514 --> 01:09:12.225
Best way I found to do it is go through your accountant.

01:09:12.225 --> 01:09:17.243
They're just more equipped to handle the whole application process and they'll take my one.

01:09:17.243 --> 01:09:19.109
I use intrepid advisory.

01:09:19.149 --> 01:09:28.760
They take 10 out of the net proceeds you get, so still pretty reasonable, awesome, all right, anything else that you've got, mike, before we wrap up.

01:09:29.661 --> 01:09:38.435
I don't think so, except just to say, obviously, isaac, we certainly want to hear how some of these changes that you implement have affected the business.

01:09:38.435 --> 01:09:52.122
Realistically, we would love to have you back on for another interview, maybe a couple or three months down the road after you've implemented some of this stuff, and just to touch base with you again and see what the results have been.

01:09:52.489 --> 01:09:55.423
Yeah, thank you, mike and thanks John for having me on.

01:09:55.423 --> 01:09:57.711
I love what you guys are doing on this podcast.

01:09:57.711 --> 01:10:10.956
I've taken, as I mentioned earlier, a bunch of nuggets from it and implemented and seen some great results, so I'd love to come back and, yeah, we can catch up on how these changes are going and what results we're seeing.

01:10:10.956 --> 01:10:13.021
I'd be happy to get into the numbers of it as well.

01:10:14.289 --> 01:10:14.652
Super.

01:10:14.652 --> 01:10:15.734
No, it's great.

01:10:15.734 --> 01:10:16.960
Thanks a lot for being on, Isaac.

01:10:17.930 --> 01:10:19.836
Thank you, and last plug there.

01:10:19.836 --> 01:10:30.055
So I'm going to be not sure when we're going to air, but I'll be at Seller Sessions in London in May, so if anybody's there and wants to catch up, I'll be in London for about a week, so just hit me up.

01:10:31.118 --> 01:10:31.579
Amazing.

01:10:31.579 --> 01:10:33.954
Yeah, I'm actually sorry I'm not going to be able to be there.

01:10:33.954 --> 01:10:37.911
We have prior commitments, but hopefully I'll get to catch up with you in.