This article originally appeared on [MarketplacePrep.com](https://marketplaceprep.com/restock-limits) and is syndicated here.

In April 2021, Amazon announced Account Level Restock limits. And to be frank, many sellers don’t understand them. I am going to break them down after multiple weeks of study, data analysis, and research for you.

I have worked with dozens of sellers within our 3PL, across social media, and many friends of mine. We currently have a 13% utilization and have maintained 10-15% since this policy was announced and every account we have analyzed aligns with our analysis

## What aren’t restock limits?

– Restock limits are not tied to Cubic or Volumetric Storage
– Restock Limits are not tied to IPI scores (they are calculated using different formulas)
– Restock Limits are not “Random”
– Restock Limits do not have the same thresholds in non-US marketplaces.
– Restock limits are not based on Gross Sales Volume
– Restock Limits are not just “Sell more” or “Sell Faster”. You can actually increase limits with slower OR faster selling skus equally.
– Restock Recommendations on the Restock inventory tab are *not* optimized for Restock Limits — Those have default settings that can be changed at the sku level.

## Now that is covered, how do they work?

Amazon uses one very key metric in the their Restock Algorithm — Turnover (A variation of turnover is also called Days of Cover or Days of Stock.)

If you want to increase your restock limits, you don’t need to simply just “sell more”. You need to increase your utilization to sell-through ratio. A simple way to understand it is “Days of Stock”. Days of stock is calculated when an item is added to a shipment NOT when it hits FBA.

If you sell 3,000 units a month across all skus and you maintain 6,000 units of stock at AND inbound to FBA, you have roughly 60 days of stock. This would put you likely between 60-80% utilization. Bump that down to 30 days, and you will be at 15-25% utilization (based on our estimates). All these calculations are separated by size category and aren’t perfectly accurate. Just statistically they tend to fall within these ranges.


## What can you do about it?

You need to increase your turnover by sending in smaller quantities of each sku more frequently and do whatever you can to shorten the time between adding an item to a shipment and having it check in at Amazon. Lastly, attempt to keep your total quantity inbound and at amazon under 30 days worth of stock or as close to that as possible.

1. Increase frequency of shipments – Buy less stock or hold it at your warehouse, a 3PL, or some other location domestically. Then drip feed inventory in from that location based on each sku’s sell-through.

2. Decrease shipping times – Move stock to the US before labeling boxes with shipment labels. Work with 3PLs or freight brokers to get shipments delivered to Amazon faster via non-partnered carrier appointments.

3. Send in the appropriate amount of inventory per frequency of shipments to maintain as close to 30 days of stock inbound and at amazon as possible.

4. Delete any inbound shipments you aren’t planning to send in. These get calculated in your utilization and utilization ratio.

5. Remove or “fire sale” excess inventory with more than 60 days of stock.

The final note, which some people may be able to relate to: Restock Limits are like Credit Scores. You may have a $10,000 limit, but if you put $9,000 on that card, your score will go down. Now change that to units and your Max Restock limit will go down. 

## [Contact Marketplace Prep for help with Restock Limits](https://marketplaceprep.com/contact)

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Demystifying Restock Limits: How they Work

This article originally appeared on [MarketplacePrep.com](https://marketplaceprep.com/2d-barcodes)

In the past year or so, “2D Barcodes” have gotten a lot of hype for a variety of operational reasons. With that said, unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on their function, use, benefits, and their disadvantages. 

## What is a 2D Barcode?

A 2D barcode is a barcode that stores data in 2 dimensions — Horizontally and Vertically. Unlike UPCs or EANs, that only store data horizontally, 2D barcodes can store significantly more data in the same amount of space.

Amazon uses 2D barcodes in 2 main ways – On the Amazon Shipping Label (Image 1) and as an option for providing Box Content Information (Image 2). Examples Below.

## What are the purposes of these labels?

### AMAZON SHIPPING LABEL

Amazon **Requires** all boxes to FBA to have an “Amazon Shipping Label” (Image 1). Without this shipping label, there can be delays with receiving your shipment and possible fees/suspension of your FBA Shipment privileges. This label tells which Box Number and FBA shipment the products are associated with. Articles and help pages indicating this 1D or 2D barcode (Both of these yield the same data) help speed up check-in times are accurate because they are critical to the identification of which Box and Shipment ID are being referenced for the units in that box.

### BOX CONTENT LABEL(S)

While Amazon does have services that will do your Box Content information for you, the information telling Amazon what is in each box, those services can be quite expensive. Plus Amazon has stated¹ 2D Barcodes for Box Contents may slow down check-in times. The alternative is uploading the Box Content information to Amazon via Webform, Excel or Tab Delimited file upload, “Send to Amazon” Workflow, or using “Everything in One Box” function. 

Amazon also created an additional option for sellers who need other companies or personnel to create box contents without account access and those are in the form of storing content data in an additional 2D barcode (Image 2).

## 2D Barcodes -- The 3 Key Flaws

1. 2D Barcodes for Box Contents were designed by Amazon as an alternative — Not the ideal form of Box Contents. If Amazon prioritized them, they would have a Seller Central interface for them, but instead, they state: “Please note that you will need to use a third-party application or website to generate 2D barcodes.”² If you truly need to use them, you must buy, build, or figure out software or a way to create these barcodes.

2. Secondly, Amazon blatantly states that 2D Barcode Box Contents slow down check-in times according to their 2D Barcode Box Content Information help page: “Important: The use of 2D barcodes may cause delays in receiving your shipment. Shipments with 2D barcodes require more processing time than shipments with [Uploaded] box content information.”²
Because this method does not tell Amazon box contents of a box until they physically scan the barcode in the warehouse, Amazon prefers, based on their documentation and language, methods of box content information they can analyze and process before it arrives at the fulfillment or sortation center(s).

3. Lastly, when using exclusively 2D Barcodes for box content, there is no “check” system for products needing expiration dates. Often there are items that require expiration dates that don’t actually expire, which can likely be missed in the packing process. If you miss them, Amazon states: “Failure to specify the manufacturing date or expiration date on a product might cause delays in receiving your products, or it may cause products to be received as expired at the fulfillment center.”³ By uploading Box Contents to Amazon, you will get errors that prevent you from completing the shipment if you miss them — allowing you to resolve them before shipping.

## Myths vs Reality

When you upload feed (Through MWS/SP-API/Software or through the webform, upload spreadsheet, or in the various Seller Central interfaces), you tell Amazon “Box 1, a part of shipment ABC, contains one product of D, E, and F each” (Contents irrelevant for this discussion). Now when Amazon scans either barcode in image 1 above, that ID “FBA15JD9C5R9U000001” (FBA ID + U + Box number) will scan into their software and reference the data in their database that you submitted before shipping to see what’s in each box. This makes storing box content data in a 2D barcode **on the box** unnecessary. 

A common misconception is that 2D barcodes will speed up check-in times (contradicting Amazon’s documentation), but is likely based on correlation; Not causation. 2D Barcodes are not what tells Amazon to unload a truck faster, but instead if that carrier has a “Dead Load” versus a “Live Load”. Both Partnered and Non-Partnered Carriers can have “Dead Load” shipments delivered to Amazon, which means they can drop off the trailer and Amazon can get to it whenever they’d like. Live Load shipments mean they have to be unloaded into the fulfillment center before the driver can leave, which speeds up check-in times. Additionally, prioritization queues are a dynamic cycle at all Amazon fulfillment centers. A prioritization queue cannot tell the box contents of a shipment if the data isn’t uploaded to Amazon and a live load will have different prioritization than a dead load as they can wait till less-than-peak times to unload a dropped trailer. A full article explaining this concept can be made if there is enough interest.

## When SHOULD you use 2D Barcodes?
1. 2D Barcodes are useful! They have their purpose. If you want suppliers to generate box contents for you without access to Amazon, they can do so with the right software. 

2. 2D Box Content Barcodes store lots of data. This can be used for internal tracking, warehouse management, and pre-packing boxes if you want to.

3. Lastly, we upload all our client’s box content information to Amazon, ensuring expiration dates are uploaded and the fastest, optimal check-in times, but also print 2D barcodes on the same label in case there is a temporary error with Amazon’s feeds, MWS/SP-API, or other technical issues. For example, if the shipment is marked as “Shipped” prematurely and we don’t have time to open a case to change it back to worked. We can resort to using 2D barcodes as a backup. This happens in probably 0.1-0.2% of our shipments — Extremely rarely. They are a fantastic backup plan in the midst of a technical issue, but are never relied upon. We are able to label our boxes as we build our shipments using Scanpower under their “Boxt” plan for $24/month (Not affiliated, just saves us a lot of time). This saves significant processing time while allowing us to add items to shipments, to boxes, and to pallets as we go.

[If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to Contact Us!](https://marketplaceprep.com/contact)

## Sources
1. [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202061550](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202061550)

2. [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202049090](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202049090)

3. [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201003420](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201003420)

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Need some FNskus, 2D Barcodes, or unified 2D/Box Labels done? 

Check out this free tool from Diana Gershman

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Why You Shouldn’t Use 2D Barcodes — and When You Should

This article originally appeared on [MarketplacePrep.com](https://marketplaceprep.com/split-shipments)

Split shipments have always been frustrating for new sellers. Amazon does this for a variety of reasons, but mainly to distribute products across their fulfillment centers better. In this article, I discuss ways you can mitigate split shipments without violating Amazon’s Terms of Service.

## 1. Use the same labeling type

When adding new SKUs to Seller Central you can sometimes select the “Use Manufacturer Barcode” which allows you to use the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) or ASIN-Linked Product Identifier (Often a UPC, but not always). Using this type of barcode is considered “Comingled Shipping” which means that it will mix with other comingled sellers’ inventory if any exist. This is because the barcode is tied to an ASIN that won’t be changed across skus or sellers.

The other type of barcode is “Seller Label”, which utilizes a custom FNSKU (Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit) 

If you have 100 skus total and 50 are comingled, you are very likely going to see the comingled skus get split into different shipments, despite likely going to the same fulfillment centers.

## 2. Case Packing vs Individual Units

Case Packing your shipment will cause your inventory to split different ways than using “Individual” units. When you ship items to Amazon via case pack, Amazon will not split up the case pack quantities, but they may send full cases to different destinations. Case packed shipments also do not typically get combined with Individual Unit shipments. 

You can use Case Packed shipments to sometimes send lower quantities of items in smaller cases to mitigate splits. This tip is one you simply need to experiment with because each business will find different use-case scenarios on when to use “Case Packed” vs “Individual Units”.

## 3. Specialty Categories

One of the more well-known reasons items will split shipments is based on the product type. Amazon has different warehouses for different purposes. For example, Oversize warehouses have equipment and larger machines that can handle the larger items that they process. Hazmat warehouses have the proper safety and labeling requirements for hazmat items. Some of the categories Amazon splits into different warehouses are:

- Oversize
- Specialty Oversize (Unusually large or heavy)
- Hazmat
- Apparel and Shoes
- Automotive
- A few other categories and items fall under this section as well.
- Stocking in these categories simply means it will be harder to build up larger shipments as the items in them will typically be split between 3 destinations

## 4. Shipment Upload Type

How you build your shipments is critical to know how your inventory will split. Adding items one-by-one vs in one batch/file can greatly dictate how, where, and what items go to various destinations. Using software to do this can greatly improve your efficiency of prep, but it can be technically done via Seller Central as well.

## 5. Quantity

Lastly, except in specialty categories, most items will follow the “18” unit rule. The “18 unit rule” is the threshold Amazon determines it is more effective for them to distribute your inventory from a “distribution/cross-dock” facility than sending that inventory direction to a final destination “Fulfillment center”. 

Typically you will see shipments split with 17 or less units, but Amazon’s Terms of Services allows for a 6-unit adjustment. So in most scenarios, we are able to get 12 units or more (Add 18, adjust down 6) to go to our nearest distribution center. 

## 6. Book Non-Partnered Carrier Freight

Now this one will not be applicable to everyone. However, it not only can lead to faster check-in times but sometimes can even be cheaper than Partnered Carrier Freight. Consider booking your own freight with local, domestic, and international carriers that understand Carrier Central. Carrier Central is the appointment scheduler and is one of the ways carriers can get appointments at Amazon. This can speed up times from your warehouse to getting checked in at Amazon along with, depending on the carrier and distance, reduced shipping costs.

An additional hidden cost of Partnered Carrier shipping is the longer transit times may lead to longer holding of inventory and higher capital costs to maintain larger inventory levels across your supply chain.

Found this useful? [Reach out to James and his team here](https://marketplaceprep.com/call)

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Amazon FBA Split Shipments: 5 Ways to Save on Inbound Shipping Costs

This post originally appeared on [MarketplacePrep.com](https://marketplaceprep.com/amazon-drip) and is syndicated here. 

In 2020, Amazon implemented “Inbound Limit” restrictions, otherwise known as “COVID Limits” because they arose from COVID-19 disrupting a lot of supply chains. Unfortunately this has caused a lot of logistical issues for Amazon sellers because being able to maintain stock or launch products becomes increasingly difficult.

## 1. Where to see your limits

On the Inventory Planning page, click “Restock Inventory” or go to the following link: 
[https://sellercentral.amazon.com/restockinventory/recommendations](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/restockinventory/recommendations)

This page is effectively Amazon’s Forecasting Interface for sellers. Many people don’t realize the amount of information on this page.

On this page you will see a bar with 4 key metrics.

![Amazon-IPI-Bar.webp](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Amazon-IPI-Bar.webp-770a30b5c861a3e855b583ac1a3aaf57.webp)

1. Estimated days until you will run out (12 Days)
2. Number of Units at or inbound to FBA (19 Units)
3. How much of your inbound limit you are using (Black Bar)
4. Amazon’s Recommended Restock Quantity (65 Units.)

Obviously running out of stock isn’t great, but you also don’t want to overstock. Seeing how much you can send in is on the grey down arrow next to the word “units”.

![Amazon Inventory Days Of Stock](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Days-Of-Stock.webp-4f78bd28546e4239887e803bf9382c82.webp)

Now this dialogue box breaks down into detail the more important information. The most important information here a simple formula.

Maximum inventory allowed – Current Utilization* = Maximum shipment quantity. 

* Current utilization is all units that are at FBA, inbound to FBA, and planned to be inbound via FBA. More on this below.

## 2. "Rogue Shipments"

The number one type of question I get regarding inbound shipping limits is “Why can’t I send in 100 units when I only have 50 at FBA? Well… A few possibilities. Review #1 above and see where the inventory is allocated. Are the units in FC Transfer? Are the units inbound? If they are inbound, they may be in what I call a “Rogue Shipment”. Items in incomplete shipments do fill up your utilization quantities.

Rogue Shipments are shipments that were made, likely to test something or experiment with something, that were never actually shipped, but are still in “working” status.

If a shipment is in working status that you do not intend on shipping in, due to a test or figuring out estimated costs, then delete these shipments. Once done, wait 15-30 minutes for the restock quantities page to refresh for your particular SKU.

![Amazon Shipment In Working Status](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Shipment-Working-Status.webp-238d6374bb857d384911fc046f7154a5.webp)

## 3. Drip Feed Amazon FBA daily/weekly

One of the best ways to increase your inbound limits is to send in more inventory more frequently. Instead of sending a container to Amazon with 1,000 units, you probably can only send 200. However, you will want to be able to restock quickly as sales gain momentum, so storing the remaining 800 units in your warehouse or a 3PL facility will allow you to send in more units more frequently until your inbound limits remain stable. We have assisted clients with this and the industry calls this service either “Amazon Drip” or “Case/Carton Forwarding”.

## 4. Supplement with Merchant Fulfilled sales

Lastly, we know the inbound limits are ultimately impacting your ability to remain in stock. Utilizing a 3PL or alternative fulfillment network that can ship your products direct to consumers is always a final option. This will allow you to maintain some sales, if that is your intended goal, while you can get more sent to FBA.

Found this useful? [Reach out to James and his team here](https://marketplaceprep.com/call)

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“Amazon Drip”: 4 Basic Tips for FBA Inbound Limits

This article originally appeared on www.MarketplacePrep.com[www.MarketplacePrep.com](https://marketplaceprep.com/ipi) and is syndicated here. 

Amazon implemented the Inventory Performance Index Score (IPI Score) in 2018 and it has caused all kinds of confusion for sellers. Because of the way Amazon presents the score on the Seller Central Dashboard, sellers. This post breaks it down. 

Before we start, your IPI Score is based on a **90-Day rolling-weighted-average** of snapshots. This means IPI is calculated once a week (typically on Monday morning PST/Seattle time). So if you have one week where you have terrible inventory metrics, but it recovers a week later, you will likely only see a small, temporary decrease in your IPI score. On the other hand, if you are consistently getting worse and worse inventory management, then you will find it hard to increase the score rapidly.

Secondly, a few minor areas to talk about are that you must have a Professional Selling Plan and have inventory at FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) for a significant portion the past 13 weeks. 

![Amazon-Inventory-Performance-Index](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/IPI-1.webp-674773743be0aaec5d4c3130c79d139d.webp)

IPI Score Example showing Stranded Inventory, Excess Inventory, Sell Through, and In-Stock Rate
The above image is an example of the Amazon Inventory Performance Dashboard’s IPI Score. Intuitively you would think that “Oh the IPI score is comprised of 4 simple parts! Let’s increase all 4 for a better score!”. Unfortunately, that is much easier said than done. In Q4 2020, we saw very large sellers with extremely precise inventory management struggling to maintain a 500+ score. This puzzled me and started my research.

## The 4 Areas of IPI Scores
### 1. Stranded Inventory
Stranded inventory is “Units” based, not “SKU”. So if you have 100 SKUs down, but only 120 units stranded, you will be affected less than if you have 1,000 units down of 2 SKUs (assuming both have the same total units at FBA).

**Formula:**
Sum of all Stranded Inventory units / Sum of all FBA Units Available * 100 = Stranded Inventory Percentage

Stranded Inventory typically has some of the lowest impact and easiest ability to fix. In most cases, stranded inventory can be resolved through either the “Fix Stranded Inventory” page or by opening a seller support case if the reason is due to a technical or inventory error. 

Amazon recommends fixing all other metrics first. In my experience, stranded inventory does drop your IPI score, but the proportion it does is minimal.

### 2. Excess Inventory
Excess Inventory is one of those metrics that causes domino effects to other metrics. Overstocking inventory means more storage, less sell through, more excess inventory, and ultimately higher risk for Amazon. 

**Formula (ASIN specific):**
Units Available  – (Average Units Sold per Day * 90) = Number of Excess Units

Excess Inventory is calculated based on if you have more than 90 days of cover/stock for a particular ASIN at your current sales velocity. Increase sales velocity or decrease stock to reduce your excess inventory units.

### 3. Sell-Through Rate
Sell-Through Rate is one of those metrics that people see as “I need to sell more”, but don’t really understand. Because this metric is by far one of the most weighted in the IPI calculation (because it calculates inventory efficiency), it is probably one of the more important ones to focus your time on. IPI Score metrics are typically pulled at the beginning of the week, so that “snapshot” is stored week-to-week.

Formula:
Number of Units Sold in the last 90 days / Average Inventory Quantity* = Sell Through Rate

*Average Inventory Quantity = (Today’s Qty + 30 Days Ago Qty + 60 Days Ago Qty + 90 Days Ago Qty)/4

Sell-Through is effectively “Turnover” of a 90-day period. Because this is an average it will be very hard to pull this number up in a short period of time because you need to sustain great sell-through for 30 or 60+ days for it to start averaging in your favor. This means sending in more frequently, dripping inventory into Amazon from your supplier, 3PL, or facility, and maintaining lower inventory levels than you may prefer. It is a careful balance.

### 4. In-Stock Inventory Rate
This one is special. Your In-Stock Inventory Rate does **NOT** directly affect your IPI score. Amazon has confirmed this (linked below) on multiple occasions. However, there are things indirectly affected by running out of stock, such as more focus on slower-moving merchandise. Also, hiding SKUs from restock recommendations affects only your FBA in-stock rate, not your IPI score.

**Formula (ASIN specific):**
FBA In-Stock rate = (Days in Stock the past 30 Days) / .3

**Formula (Multiple ASINs):**
( ASIN 1 [60-day Units Sold / Days in stock * FBA In-Stock rate] + ASIN 2 [60-day Units Sold / Days in stock * FBA In-Stock rate] ) / Sum of Each ASIN’s 60-Day Sales Velocity)

Example Chart Below:
In this example below, the FBA In-Stock Rate for these two SKUs would be calculated as [(2*50%)+(3*100%)] / (2+3) = **80%**

![Inventory IPI Chart](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/IPI-2.webp-1d740abba23ca089d0a2a8deacceb11a.webp)

## 4. Storage (The Hidden 4th Metric)
I won’t leave you hanging though, so let’s talk about Storage. Amazon implemented IPI score because storage space is limited in their warehouses. They don’t want “dead” inventory sitting in their facilities. With that, space becomes very valuable. I have personally seen and analyzed small and large sellers get penalized for physically large goods (Oversized Private Label products) or for large quantities of medium/large size goods (High variety shoe sellers). Amazon sees these products as taking up more space than other inventory, therefore the value those products bring is less. Ultimately it boils down to larger products are higher risk for Amazon as they can take up more space per dollar generated.

Sources:
– [Amazon’s Seller Forums post about the IPI Score Calculations](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/fba-inventory-performance-index-ipi/397597)
– [Amazon’s Help Pages for Inventory Performance](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help-page.html?itemID=202174810&ref=ag_202174810_bred_ZJF4DY2W6MERBAL)
– [Amazon’s Help Pages for IPI Score Frequently Asked Questions](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=ZJF4DY2W6MERBAL&language=en_US&ref=ag_ZJF4DY2W6MERBAL_cont_202174810)
– Extensive study and research while working with Amazon Sellers who utilize or need 3PL services to drip-feed inventory into Amazon FBA due to IPI score limitations. [(Reach out to James if this is you!)](https://marketplaceprep.com/sign-up)

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Amazon IPI Score: Shattering the Myths

## The competition is your greatest teacher.

The top Amazon tactics and strategies aren’t found in a guru course, youtube video or podcast, they’re found on the cutting edge and are teased out by gathering intelligence on your competition. You should know every move they make. 

Keeping your eyes on the marketplace can lead to massive rewards. For me, it led to a strategy that helped brands I work with get more than 100,000 reviews and millions in sales. It led to better advertising, to a real understanding of WHY these other products were going up and down in rank, and by taking the best of my competition, I was able to improve every brand I worked with. 

You can’t innovate until you reach the bleeding edge, and you can’t effectively do marketing if you don’t understand the market. 

## Spying on Amazon

There’s a lot to learn from watching your competition’s Amazon listings and profiles, and a lot of tools that make it easy to uncover their strategy. 

First, take a look at the seller profile and see what else they’re selling. 

What can you learn about their product mix and pricing strategy? Are they laser focused on one niche or do they sell a little of everything?

Are they using Coupons or other promotions?

Are they using unique images or packaging? 

Are the reviews going up fast? 

Are negative reviews disappearing? 

How often do they launch new products? 

What’s their address and company name?

Are their ranks steady or wildly swinging?

Are they having problems staying in stock?

### Helium 10 for Competition Research:
Quickly see estimated sales history and revenue with Helium 10, use Cerebro and Blackbox to see what keywords they’re ranking for and what’s driving the majority of the sales. You can also see which keywords they’re advertising for. 

### Keepa - Rank and Review tracking over time:

Keepa is one of the best tools to track rank and reviews over time. You can quickly spot anomalies if you get familiar with the tool and you can see if they have multiple accounts selling the asin that are related or if they’re running substantial external promotions. 

We used keepa to quickly figure out which of our competitors were running blasts/launches to rank, and also uncovered a plot by Akaso to sell action cameras with multiple black hat accounts, one grey hat account, and a squeaky clean white hat account. 

They would ship in containers full of inventory with very risky inserts on the black hat accounts, and run flash sales to get the products in the hands of as many customers as possible and bribe them with $20 or a free SD card to leave reviews. They were basically selling a container load at cost to pump the reviews up, while leaving the white hat account with plausible deniability. 

Almost every anomaly we found on Keepa could be explained by significant external promotions on deal sites, influencers, fb ads, or this multiple account strategy. 

### Amazon Brand Analytics
Brand Analytics gives Amazon sellers some crazy data about their competition. Put input an Asin into the search and you can see a lot of the keywords driving traffic. 

### Spying on Amazon Listings 
There’s a lot of gold in the customer reviews with photos. Typically most of your competitor’s product inserts and promo materials are right there in the open, especially if it’s a popular product. 

Go to customer reviews and filter by image/video - look for any inserts.

Here’s an example of one on the bioschwartz turmeric listing with 77000 reviews.

![Bioschwartz-Free.jpg](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Bioschwartz-Free.jpg-d48926a5d08a95936d601d92f8b22ea9.jpg)

### Amazon ads
Are they using display and video ads? Amazon DSP? Just Sponsored Products? No ads at all? 

If their display or video ads are running for a long time, it’s probably because they’re MAKING MONEY. No one is going to run ads for long if they’re not getting results, so this means they figured out a working angle or strategy that you can duplicate. 

### Be their biggest fan
Buy their product, join their email list, be their biggest fan.

Do they find a way to remarket to you? Are they sending you offers for new products? Or do they just disappear. What’s the post purchase email flow like? 

Join their email list, sign up for their “warranty” program, you’d be surprised what you can find out.

## Spying off Amazon

First, look at their seller profile and get their company name and address. You can see if they own other trademarks or companies, you can search the company on linkedin and see if you find anything interesting. 

Like all their social media posts and join their groups. Sign up for their email lists. 

Some brands might not have these, that’s fine, the absence of one shows you a lot about how they operate too. 

You can spy on their ads using the Facebook ad library. 

Go to any brand FB page, then click on “transparency” and then go to ads library. 

You can also directly go to ads library at facebook.com/ads/library

Here’s an example from Angry Orange, a Thrasio brand. 

![Angry Orange FB Ads](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Angry-Orange-FB-Ads.png-a2698a2b02ecc74b9b26fca167ee7009.png)

When I click “Shop Now” on one of their ads I can see it’s a pixelfy.me super url. 

Important note: Ad Library only shows active ads, use something like adison.io to save ads from ad library in case they turn that ad off. 

If you want to spy on google traffic or influencers, use SEMRUSH

You can type in any Amazon product url and find backlinks to it. This makes it easy to find any time it was mentioned in a listicle, deal, or external product review. 

## Continuous Monitoring

Use Google Alerts to let you know when your brand or your competitors get mentioned in the news or just anywhere on the internet. Very useful and free to set up. 

There are services out there like visualping.io that monitor any website changes, so that you don’t have to. This can be great to see if competitors are changing their amazon listing or their own website, allowing you to react quickly. 

## Spy on other categories and use the insights to dominate yours

If you’re in a sleepy or slow moving category, spy on the fast moving categories like supplements and electronics and bring some of those strategies to your category. Make time for this at least once or twice a week to uncover the latest strategies and build an internal model for how successful brands operate. 

If this was useful to you, let me know in our Facebook group - click the link at the top. 





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Uncover New Amazon Strategies Through Spying On The Competition

## Why I love Lings Cars
If anyone asks me what my favorite website is, there’s only one answer, LingsCars.com! 
It’s a masterwork of sales but looks like it came straight out of geocities. 

Since I need to hit 12 blog posts by tomorrow, I’m going to put aside SEO value and write about this masterwork. 

## How to Stand Out In a Crowded Market 

If you’re in marketing or sales, you should be familiar with Eugene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising. One of the key concepts in this book is the 5 stages of Market Sophistication. 

As a market gets more competitive and sophisticated, the way you need to talk to your audience changes to get them to buy

Here are the 5 levels of a market:
- Level 1: Birth of market: Just make any claim.
- Level 2: Make the claim bigger than your competition.
- Level 3: Introduce a mechanism that offers a logical reason why your claim is achievable.
- Level 4: Create a better mechanism, or an upgraded version of the previous mechanism.
- Level 5: Because the market’s skepticism is at its highest, they may no longer believe in mechanisms.

At level 5, the marketing is no longer about the actual product, it’s about the customer, it becomes about identity and personality. 

A great example of this is the evolution of the ipod ads. At the end, when the market was saturated, Apple ads weren’t about the product at all. Instead it was about the feeling of using an ipod, 

![Apple-Shadow-Commercial.jpg](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Apple-Shadow-Commercial.jpg-ff0f413f4a06abd482fa893f56cf9d07.jpg)

Car leasing is a Level 5 market and so the only way to success is to make it about personality. Ling Valentine completely succeeds, and has cracked the market to become the #1 independent car leaser in the UK. 

Stop right now and ask yourself how competitive is your market? Are you using the right claims for your audience?

## Sales Techniques 

Ling is a natural master at sales. 

Her website explains every step of the sales process. 

Let’s break down the sales page

Her sales pages are lengthy. If you’re selling a complex product, it can be better to have a long page, but it needs to be easy to navigate and include multiple opportunities for customers to move forward with their purchase. 

Ling even includes an index for her sales page, making it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. 

![Ling-Sales-Index.png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Ling-Sales-Index.png-af0c229c52845c3138a33f367c82d588.png)

Ling gives every car a “unique mechanism” or personality, the Volvo V60 becomes an “Ikea Wagon” - she calls out the target customer for each car. 

Her calls to action are all over the page, and she explains exactly what will happen in the order process. There’s even a youtube video on the page explaining exactly how to fill in the order form. 

![Ling-Order-Now.png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Ling-Order-Now.png-dbf5ea38815b74aeeaa8224bbcb3ad9f.png)

She removes any hesitation by conquering every objection or unknown in the customer’s head.

In the end, how could you buy a car from anyone else?

One aspect I really like is how she minimizes the cost of the car by comparing it to a pack of cigarettes and big macs. Pictures below. 

![Cars-vs-Fags.png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Cars-vs-Fags.png-ce2b69497c562ddf4400b36d076a251c.png)

At every scroll, you’re hit with more and more proof of happy customers. 
Her map of the UK is absolutely covered with customers, there are no blank spots left, now that is proof. 

![Ling-Customer-Map.png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Ling-Customer-Map.png-17a2d68e45a9fb00c5544456811b4dbf.png)

Every single sentence is written in plain and easy to understand English. This really helps when you're selling something complicated like a car lease. 

## It’s the little things

Ling has added PERSONALITY into every single word on the page, let’s look at some examples. 

Instead of “Business Hours 9am-5pm” It’s “We live inside our car leasing website all day Monday to Friday 9am-6pm.”

“Made in the People's Republic of China (Ling, not the website... which was handcrafted by Ling, in the UK)”

Take a look at the privacy policy! It's hilarious and has Ling in a Tank protecting your data. 


### Proof, Proof, and More Proof

You can never go wrong adding more proof to your website. Ling goes the extra mile and shows exactly how many customers are in each stage of the process, a map with thousands of customers, and even a picture of Ling made out of a mosiac of thousands of customer photos. There are dozens of quotes from prominant news media calling her the "Leader of the Pack"

## FAQ and staff section

The FAQ video promises it's the best FAQ section in the world, and it doesn't disappoint! Another example of taking a normally boring page and making it into something special

Each FAQ video has a chinese flight attendant asking the question while ridiculous situations are happening like the plane crashing. 

![Lings-Faq-trailer.gif](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Lings-Faq-trailer.gif-c06b84b1ba5551d09884c799a7ede7ec.gif)

The meet the staff page is done in the style of the Brooklyn 99 intro, showing the staff in ridiculous situations. 

I could talk all day about LingsCars.com and I probably will one of these days. But the best thing you could do it see for yourself. 

There are hundreds of examples of amazing marketing on this website, and I hope we all realize that our businesses can make the world a less boring place. 



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Marketing Lessons from LingsCars - the Best Website Ever

Glen Ingram is the founder of Web Search Pros and advocate for website accessibility, making your website easy and accessible for everyone to use. This is vital since millions of internet users have some degree of vision or hearing disability. 

By running your own website, you're exposed to legal issues and lawsuits and not being aware of the laws doesn't mean they don't apply to you. 

However, a lot of the laws that govern website accessibility are vague and opague, without clear and defined standards. 

There's been a massive increase of lawyers targeting Shopify site owners for a quick cash grab, and these lawsuits can start at $25,000 or more. 

They partner with a disabled person and use this to target thousands of companies.

## How people with vision disabilities use your website

85-95% of ADA Lawsuits against websites are coming from people with vision issues, and most of the rest are from people with hearing issues. 

People with vision issues use something called a "screen reader" to view your website. 

It takes your website and turns it audible. 

It's very important to use proper Heading tags in a hierarchy, as well as proper ALT text for images for a screen reader to work well. 

Learn ARIA and Semantic HTML to implement this on your site, since it's highly likely whoever made your theme did not set this up correctly, and at the end of the day it's your responsibility. 

According to Glen, "Accessibility is like being pregnant, you either are or you aren't." 97% of websites are NOT accessible.

There have been websites sued over one single PDF that was not compliant. 

Test your website with JAWS screen reader now and try to navigate it, you'll quickly find it's likely a frustrating experience. 

Users with Vision handicaps will likely use their Keyboard for navigation instead of a mouse. So they use TAB to work through your website. It's important when they do that the point of focus is correct, that they can skip through certain menus, etc.

Plugins don't cut it, in fact they might even attract more lawsuits since the lawyers pursuing these cases know they don't cut it. 

Most lawsuits hold you to WCAG 2.1 AA Standards.

If your website is accessible in the US or sells to the US, you can be sued even if you are a foreign company. 

Spend on making your website accessible can actually be eligible for tax credits after the first $250 spend on accessibility. 

## Quick conversion tip: Increase Font Size
A lot of the work you do to make your website easier to use will lead to increased conversions. 

I noticed this on one of my dropshipping sites when I changed the colors to increase contrast and also increase font size, my customers fit into an older demographic and conversion rates went way up. 

If you're selling to an older audience, increase the default font size! 

"The reality of it is you make that a little bit bigger, like you said with your color contrast. And you're not going to have any notice anything else other than more sales. Because if it's easier to read, easier to convert, it's easier to buy."

## Quick Conversion Tip: Use the proper html for phone numbers and other contact info:

when you look at half the people are on a phone or tablet, when you put in a phone number, and you go over to your word processor thing, and you're in your website, and you click the link, it's T E, L, colon, and your phone number. And now it's clickable. But I'll bet you 67% of websites don't have clickable phone numbers and that drives me batty.

## Quick ways to check if your website is compliant

1. Use the WAVE app by Webaim (should be on your right side of the screen) - this should quickly show you color contrast, font, alt text, and navigation issues.

2. Use Google's Lighthouse tool - this is great for checking accessibility issues but also can check for website speed and performance, SEO, and more. 

3. Use a Screen reader tool to go through your website. 

4. Get an audit done by a professional, like Glen at WebSearchPros. 

## Conclusion

Fixing Accessibility issues can lead to higher conversion rates, better search engine rankings, and peace of mind that you won't get a needless website. 

It's not hard to become more compliant than 90% of other websites with just an hour or two a week over time. 

## Must read articles and resources:

WCAG 2.1 AA Standards
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/

https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_form_input_types.asp

https://webaim.org/techniques/skipnav

https://webaim.org/techniques/css/invisiblecontent/

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Roles

https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp

WAVE

Glen-Ingram-Interviewee-CEO-WebSearchPros

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Prevent Lawsuits and reach millions of site visitors with disabilities by making accessibility a core value for your company. 

If you've never checked your website with WAVE or another tool, you're in for a shock. 

Try it for free now

Wave - Free Accessibility Checker

Website Accessibility and Lawsuits with Glen Ingram of WebSearchPros

## Introducing Gracey Ryback:

Gracey Ryback, known as @dealcheats on Tiktok, Amazon Live, and Instagram is an influencer, content creator, and Affiliate that has sold more than $5 million through the Amazon associates program. She has more than 1.1 million subscribers, and reached this point in less than a year and a half. 

## Gracey Rybeck's Super Hero Origin Story

I kind of started my account differently from how everybody else starts. And you know, my intentions were never to monetize, it was never to make this a thing. 

I really started it because I personally would always seek out these promo codes and these discounts. And I love Amazon, you know, Amazon has me in their grip. So I would always look for these discount codes. And then I would be like really excited when I found like a really good deal on something. And I would want to like share it with my family and my friends and like they were just like so incredibly uninterested. And they're like, Oh, it must be a bad product. Oh, it must be a scam. Like, I don't even believe it like oh, what is this Gracey.

So I was like, okay, like these people obviously aren't interested in this the way I am. So I saw a couple people kind of like sharing deals on Tik Tok, Maybe I can help a couple people save money on Amazon. And that was my intention behind it. And then I was like, maybe I'll get 1000 followers, maybe 2000 If I'm lucky. And that was how it started.

I originally started out just like behind my computer screen taking videos of the product listing and then like I put in the promo code, the price would drop dramatically. And it would be like, just that was it. It was so simple.  I used to crank out like eight to 10 videos a day and one video like really popped off and I never popped off on Tik Tok before that, but once it did, I  kind o got the ball rolling and more people found my account. 

Then I would just take requests that people would comment. They'd be like, I want to find a cat tree for my cat that she outgrew it or like, I want to find like a gift for my dad. Like do you have any deals? And so I would just be so excited about helping these people like find deals. I was almost like their personal shopper. And it made me so happy when people are like, I got it. I wanted it for so long.

## Content Strategy from Listening to Her Audience:

## Downside of Deal Content: 

Zack: Deals are just super powerful content because the urgency is there. Everything you do is essentially time limited which means you can't make a huge buffer of content and you need to actually do this every day whether you feel like it or not for this podcast I can record 50 podcasts in one day, release one a week, and then take a vacation.

Gracey: Is this the kind of content that is going to wreak havoc on my mental health? The answer is yes. Because you know, there is no way to batch there is no way to, you know, take a day off, God forbid, you know, like, you have to be like, in the moment if you're one second to slow you might miss it, you know, it's and also all the content that I create, and spend time planning and actually filming, it does become irrelevant after well, somewhat irrelevant after the deal kind of goes away. So that's just the how deals go I guess.

## Tiktok - content longevity 

## Tiktok Culture 

I watch Tiktoks for hours at a time.

Oh, here's a quick little secret on how to succeed on TikTok. Half the battle is just knowing the content that's native to the app, it's understanding the little tricks of like, how to put text on the screen, what to put on the screen, what sound to use behind it, the time that you know, how long to make the video, how to do a voice over like there's there's things that you learn in the process of getting to know the app, I could almost guarantee that somebody's just making a good quality video that might do great as an ad on Instagram or like as a YouTube video. If you don't really know the TikTok quote unquote culture  it just might not do as well as somebody who kind of makes a lesser lower production quality video, but it looks more native to how Tik Tok is.

## Kickstarting audience by promoting other deals, then getting brand partnerships

## Standing behind your content - responsibility as an influencer and content creator 

I have to fully stand behind whatever I talked about, because we're just at that point where I have to, I can't just be promoting weird things willy nilly.

So I have to really think about is this product a good fit for my brand? Is it a good fit for me personally, is it something that my audience cares about and would find value from because if it's not, then it would kind of not make sense for me to you know, work with them. So then there's that and then a lot of times the brand will offer a unit of product and then I'm able to kind of test it out, use it myself kind of get a good idea of all its uses. And then shockingly, there's a lot of planning that goes behind these tiny little tick tock videos that look really easy and like quick like oh, it's a 30 second video Don't tell me you're so busy that probably would took five minutes no, there's a lot of planning behind it. 

I then go and research that product on TikTok see if there's any viral videos surrounding that product already if there's any kind of videos talking about that video already or that product already and see how I can kind of spin any virality into my video and see like, what do people know about this product already? Why aren't they buying? it is it too expensive? Is it you know that it I like whatever and then where my value is is like yo
u haven't yet, here's a deal. So now pull the trigger. So now you can buy it. And that's kind of how that goes.

## Influencer industry standards 

I've gotten a lot of questions from other Amazon sellers, like, what, how much do influencers charge? Like, what can I expect? The answer that always give is like, as much as I will hope and pray and wish for an industry standard of anything, there is none. It's kind of like buying a car. If you ask me like, oh, how much is a car? I'd be like, well, a Lamborghini is going to be different than a Toyota is going to be different from you know, like, it's every influencer has their own specialty. Maybe this is an influencer, specializing in lifestyle and mommy life and that era. I'm an influencer in the deal world. And like, there's every there's tech, you know, every influencer is going to have different pricing and different highlights and like different, whatever. So I'll kind of talk about my experience.

## Influencer commission

Flat fee plus commission, or some influencers are able to do commission only commission based and I think that's a really great, like, almost win win situation for brands because, you know, they're only paying for the sales that they make. And then I usually do like having a contract laid out just because that avoids any like misunderstandings. And there's a lot that can go into that. It's like there's usage rights copyright usage, there is exclusivity, there is whitelisting there is you know, promo codes usually and then there is just all these details to be laid out. And I usually think that you know, it is more formal to use a contract and sometimes safer for both ends to do that. But a lot of times there is you know, it's less formal than that as well.

I think the only issue with that from an influencer perspective that I've dealt with is that when you do have a lot of those, you know, going on at the same time, it's hard for me to like, you know, be like, okay, like going after the money that for the commission money, that lane, you know, you have to wait for the return window to close. And then that's like, 30-35 days after the promo goes out. And then it's just a lot to have to follow up with. And so that's why I personally, am going with more of like a upfront flat fee.

## Amazon Live 

Amazon is doing a huge push for Live streaming and Amazon live this year. They've been inviting reality show stars, like from the bachelor or Bravo reality shows. I even saw J-wow the other day. 

there's so many kinds of influencers that you can find on Amazon live, there's tech, there's like fashion, there's lifestyle, there's pets, there's baby, there's everything. And so, I think Amazon live is a really, really good way to like get some UGC, get some like good testimonials, get some good content, like just have like a well known influencer, talk about your product, do a demo of your product. And then like have it linked in their carousel for their viewers to click on.

And since I'm in like the deal world, a lot of times Amazon will feature me on their like deal page, which gets a ton of traffic, crazy traffic. And then I'll be able to talk about the recent deals. And that's really fun and cool. But I will kind of give a tip to anybody who is looking to work with Amazon live influencers is to focus more on, you know, purchasing copyright usage or like working with the influencer to be able to get a copy of their live stream for you to use in your future ads and your future social media, your product listing, like whatever you want that for the content usage is going to be more important than just having an influencer do an Amazon live. The sad thing about influence Amazon live is that the live stream only plays for a couple of hours to a couple of days after it happens. And then it kind of goes away into like the archives of like that person's account. 

I definitely think the value there is going to be like using that content long term. Instead of just being like oh, this influencer is going to talk about my product for five to 10 minutes and then it goes away forever, like the value is in the content. And that content can be used in so many places like your social media, you could put it on your product listing as like a video another

## Tiers of Amazon Live Influencers 

There are three tiers of Amazon live influencers, there's **rising star**, which everybody starts as there's **insider**, which is like, once you stream for a certain amount, you get to Insider level and then you get placement on the Amazon live page. And then there's **A list**

## B Roll Content in Amazon Live Video

Amazon recently, kind of switched their goal. Before, people were talking about products they didn't necessarily have on hand. Recently, Amazon encourages to have the product in hand people like seeing product demos, people like seeing the product in use. So now usually people will, okay, so before they had a rule where like, you can't have more than like, I think five minutes of pre recorded content in your live stream that was like a red flag you'd like they would take down your live stream if you did do that. But now, since we are required to have you know the product, a lot of times like if I were to talk about a patio umbrella, I'm not going to bring that into my bedroom and like be like, here's a patio umbrella. So now, there probably is more like B roll. I wouldn't call it pre recorded footage but like, probably like if you're talking let's just use the patio umbrella. I could be like, Okay, here's a video of me setting my patio umbrella. And that would be like the relevant content

## Spicy Tip - Amazon Shoppable Video 

Amazon is now like doing a very big push for the Amazon influencers to start creating short shoppable videos for these Amazon products, and also allowing them to earn commission off of those videos. Some people are doing really well with these. And that's why there's almost a shift away from live streaming, and into purely focusing their time on these short shoppable videos. 

Listen to the Episode Here: 

Join the Seller.Deals group to get in touch with Gracey





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Gracey Ryback: Queen of Tiktok with more than $5 million in Amazon affiliate sales

Greg Elfrink is the CMO of Empire Flippers, one of my favorite companies to buy or sell a business with. Greg just came on the Zack Franklin show podcast and dropped some crazy knowledge about content marketing, selling your business, how to take advantage of conferences and more. 

Here are the show notes: 

## How to kill it at conferences:
"All the real business at a conference happens after 3am" 

## Greg Elfrink's Superhero Origin Story

My super hero origins. So, I was originally a oilfield roughneck up in Alaska. And yeah, we would be drilling for oil covered in chemicals wearing my Darth Vader rubber suit. Because the chemicals that go on your skin, they would literally like eat through your flesh it's very fun. So I hated it. I did not like it at all. It was like cold all the time, like negative 50, negative 60. I've had to fight like rabid foxes before. Like with the squeegee. I've saved my welder from a polar bear almost eating them like in the middle of the night. So not the life for me. 

So I ended up teaching myself internet marketing. I self taught myself I never went to college or anything like that. And I've been scammed a million times. By all the course gurus of course, like any good marketer is when they first started out. The transition to SEO and content marketing, content was always my thing. So I really got my start freelance writing, I just undercut everyone.

I'd be working like my 12-18 hour shift in the oil field. And then I'd go to this one corner of the of the camp, where it was like this movie watching room, I'd sit in that corner to start typing for one cent per word for all these SEO agencies, because that corner had the best Wi Fi in the Arctic Circle.

I kind of say like nihilism saved my life because like, I always had these dreams of grandeur. Like, I am going to make something big, I'm gonna make this huge affiliate website or Big E commerce or whatever, right? I was gonna do it real big, but I never had any time to actually do it, because I was always on an oil rig.

So I eventually gave up like, ah, you know, people, you know, don't get to play in the NBA just because they like basketball, right? And I love marketing like is a passion of mine. So that nihilistic kind of like trait is what led me to writing at one cent per word where I was like, Well, I know I can write really fast, hate writing content. That's what I did. I built up this huge portfolio. 

Eventually, I started ghost writing for some of the biggest SEO influencers back then, like, we have a client now who has sold I think, a few million dollars worth of businesses with us. And like, a lot of his sites were written by me and he didn't even know that till later on.

I saw that E F. was looking for a Content Marketing Pro. It was like an email they sent out and I been obsessed with the industry for a year. So I already knew who EF was like I knew them back when we were Adsense flippers, like way back in the day, like warrior forum days. And so I like, I thought to myself, like, here's a job I'm never going to get. Let me throw my hat in the ring because I had tried to get marketing jobs before. But because I have no college background at all, they would use just like that whatever get out of here, like what are you talking about? 

So to my shock, I got the interview. And then I thought like, Man, I did a terrible job of that interview. Then I got the second interview, which really surprised me because I never had made it that far before. And yeah,  that went well. And the next thing I knew, my boss was our Justin, the co founder of EF he was telling me like, all right, buy a ticket to Vietnam. That's where we're at  come to us and we'll start training

## Thoughts on Podcasts

if anyone's thinking of starting a podcast, I recommend you don't, unless you have an actual traffic channel that's built up because podcasts are a terrible traffic channel. But they're fantastic for nurturing people and building loyalty because like if you ask yourself how many blogs are you reading? Are you going to read it this year? It's probably going to be like hundreds right, like how many YouTube videos are going to watch, same thing. If you ask that for podcasts like you probably like five or six of them though, your go to that you're always listening to so there's loyalty that podcasts have that's not really in any other medium. And since selling a business is high emotional stakes right like they need to trust you that is the most important factor of everything. So it works really well for us.

## Content Marketing

My view is you give them so much value. Like, you could come read EF, like read all the EF blog posts and you would be able to sell your business without us most likely and probably be okay. But because you follow and you read all that content you're like, Wow, this is amazing. This sounds like a ton of work. Can you guys do it for me? Just like content marketing wanna water right like, here's the keys to the castle and then they're like I can you open the door for me still? Sure, no problem right 

## Answering the question behind the question

Also, the question that they're asking, ask yourself what the real question is. So like, if someone says something like, Oh, can I make money in Amazon FBA? That's not what they're really asking. They're asking am I skilled enough, like, how do I do it? It's not just the FBA portion. They're what they're like, there's all these doubts mixed into that, right? Their own imposter syndrome. So your if your answer can like, answer the deeper question, your content goes way, way better. So that's all part of like the principles of what we do with my content team. 

## Drawing Inspiration from other fields:

I'm a big believer that the best insights come when you look at two completely unrelated things, and ask yourself, what is the bridge between these two things?

So an example, copywriting is sales copy, but I'm a big fan of psychology, which obviously is related to copywriting, but I read like a whole thing about how beliefs are formed, like why do we form habits? Why do we form religious ideas or political ideas? Like, why do people do this, right? So I read this book called A believing brain called by Michael Shermer. He's like a Stanford psychologist. And everything he talks about in there is so applicable to business and to marketing. 

He talks about core beliefs, secondary beliefs, and tertiary beliefs and tertiary beliefs are the ones that are the most easily changed because you have the least committed to the belief. So marketers and salespeople really play in that tertiary and secondary, and if you change enough of those, you change the core, right? So like, this is all really powerful stuff. When you combine it through the copywriting lense and storytelling, same thing. 

Novelists like Brandon Sanderson, he just did like, like $30 million on a Kickstarter recently. So he's crushing it as a fantasy author. But you look at that these are like, no, they would never viewed themselves in this way. Because a lot of writers are like kind of anti business or they just don't understand business. But Brandon Sanderson, he's different. He understands business and these novelists are like some of the best copywriters in the world. Like think about it. Like, I have a 1000 page Book of made up people that I care about what a crazy concept is this, like, this guy is so good, he made me believe in a thing I know is a lie. But they feel so real. To me, that is a powerful copywriting thing.

So I've taken courses on how to write novels I write all those were fun to buy, I've taken like, the strategies like one is called LOCK to build like a really good structure, and I applied it to EF content, and it's awesome like that. So the LOCK system, I'm rambling here, but I get really excited about this stuff. The LOCK system, it stands for **lead objective conflict and knockout.** So the lead is your main character in the novel. The objectives are what are they trying to do. Conflict is what's stopping them from hitting the objective and Knockout is knockout punch, like how do they overcome to hit the objective right like usually in a story is like a magical item or character development whatever right? But you apply that same lens to business and it makes so much sense in the case of business, the lead is your customer right? 

Who is your customer? What are they trying to achieve their objective? What is stopping them from achieving that objective? And what can they use as their knockout punch to like overcome the conflict and the copywriting lens the knockout punch is you your product or service right? But you as the company are always a secondary character in the story. You are not the protagonist of the story they are and so that just shifts everything to thinking about them and that's a very common thing in copywriting to say but very very often never practice they're always like all my benefits were the best cutting edge whatever like no one cares, talk about their story not yours.

## Marketing to non competitive niches 

I'm a big fan of looking at other industries to figure out to be better at my industry.

I was talking to this guy and entrepreneur it was ran several big b2c companies, mostly ecommerce and you know, me at EF basically, I'm in the make money online niche, right like a subset of that niche, which is like the most difficult niche and I'm marketing to actual successful entrepreneurs so they're even more jaded than normal marketing right? So it's like a very difficult niche right and then I talked to someone like my friend who's quite successful about like, what he's doing for marketing like oh my god, that seems so simple like he's using like techniques that I use, like years ago that don't work. For me. I was just like that. Like I liked that strategy like go looking at the competitive niches, what are they doing and how do I bring that over to my more sleepy industry and you'll rock it, you'll crush it.

## Are the good times over for the aggregators? Is it too late to sell? 

I think we're at the end of the season of the seller, like the big multiples that a lot of sellers are getting, like I'm not quite like 100% certain, but we're definitely near the tail end of that. So that's been interesting to see, you know, like, a lot of the aggregators are not buying nearly as much, they're a lot more strict with what they are buying versus what they were buying last year. So that's been intriguing to see. But not I wouldn't say that's necessarily like new to me. Because I kind of knew that would probably happen because a lot of these aggregators I talked to, they're very good at m&a, like extremely good, but they're very not so good at running businesses like that running the actual like day to day operations. So it's kind of something I expected. I was surprised how fast it came though. It's just like this whirlwind of it happening

if I haven't sold yet, but there's still hope, you know, like, isn't all doom and gloom, there's plenty of aggregators, like you just said that just raise money, they haven't even made their first acquisition yet. Those aggregators are going to be coming in hot, and as long as you focus on like building a quality business, not like something that's like scammy or short term, like, you're gonna be alright, when you do exit your business. So I want to be too afraid of that, like, yeah, it might take you longer to find the right buyer now than it did before. But you still have an asset that people that people will highly desire at the end of the day.

## When you should approach a business broker? 

That's a good question, I think you should approach as soon as possible. So even if you're like 24 months out from selling, like, you're two years away from thinking about selling, you should still just have a conversation. I mean, it's like a 20-30 minute conversation,  unless you have a very complex business, that just gives you a roadmap, you know, milestones to hit all that kind of stuff. 

The reason why I suggest as long as possible, like realistically for most people is like 12 months The reason why is because the closer you get to selling, like the date of like being on the marketplace, or if you're going private, you have less and less ability to change anything. And really you shouldn't change anything like the closer you get to it should be just maintaining the status quo, because a lot of business valuation minus SAAS, which is different BS, but a lot of business valuations are based on risk, like how risky is the business, the less risky, the better valuation you're going to usually get.

The longer timeframe gives you a lot more time to steer the ship towards a bigger multiples. So that's why I say suggest as long as possible, but really, it depends on your goals. Like what you're trying to do, like if you want to sell fast. hit us up now. Better start today, for sure. If you're trying to get the maximum exit still start today, just know that your timeline might be further out. And that's okay because it gives you enough time to make those adjustments

## Best valuations and price ranges to sell at

**$0-200,000**

Exits are typically all cash and very fast. 

**$1,000,000+ Exit, **

Working with more private equity, aggregators, or high net worth individuals. 

**$500,000-$1,000,000 **

This is the "No Man's Zone" too big for a lot of bootstrapped entrepreneurs, and too small for the private equity guys. 

## Time warp effect of selling or buying a business

The time thing is why I recommend people to sell and buy businesses actually. Because like, so if you sell that business, you get that three, four years or whatever, then you buy another business, you might initially think like, Well, I'm just buying someone else's three to four years, I'm going like starting at zero, but you're not. Because when you start a business from scratch, you're at $0, right versus you buy a business is already making money. It's already a proven market fit, you already have all this data, you can scale it really quickly because of those two qualifiers and the secret with the asset flywheel thing I talked about if you want to go really really fast, is you can buy a business and literally sell that same business the next day, you can't start a business and sell that business the next day. Like we had a guy he had a it was a I think was like $105,000 affiliate site something small like that. And he bought it from us and he was like, hey, that competition seemed really fierce. Or there's still a lot of buyers interested in this and like yeah, there's tons so like well, I'll sell to one right now for 115k like okay, well we'll ask so we asked our buyers and he got someone to pay 115k So like this guy literally owned the business for like a half hour like we did start transferring the business to him yet when he like put this out like I do not recommend that strategy by the way that very very risky I've never seen that happen again. But that's something you just could not do with a business you start from scratch right like that's literally impossible

## How to get in touch with Greg Elfrink

Reach out to Greg through my Empire Flippers link - www.empireflippers.com/zack, or tag him anytime in the Seller.Deals Facebook group 

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Takeaways from Greg Elfrink on the Zack Franklin Show

# How To Boost Amazon FBA Sales Through Social Media

Be honest, when’s the last time you saw something on social media, and you just had to have that product? Maybe you were scrolling through TikTok and found the latest and greatest in kitchen gadgets, or maybe you saw the perfect hair styling tool on your favorite Instagram account.

Whatever way you slice it, social media sells. Finally, Amazon FBA sellers are starting to leverage social media in their FBA businesses. 

Social media helps build trust and authority, community and influence, and ultimately helps drive traffic to Amazon listings and websites.

This article will go over everything Amazon sellers need to know about harnessing social media in their FBA businesses in 2022.

## How Many People Use Social Media, Anyway?
![Social-Media-Management-Amazon-FBA-Business-(1).png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Social-Media-Management-Amazon-FBA-Business-(1).png-4c0d5d9bc4d8890643a5f1316d701765.png)

According to Smart Insights, more than half of the world's population uses social media. That's a whopping 4.62 billion people worldwide, with an average daily usage time of 144 minutes. With social media's stronghold on our population, those who don't take advantage of its force simply miss out on more reach and more sales.

Social media encompasses different platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Social media can help generate leads, build brand loyalty and authority, influence cross-promotion, and drive traffic to other platforms like your website. 

Whichever platform you use depends mainly on your brand and type of business. For Amazon sellers, using Amazon in conjunction with social media is one of the best ways to boost sales. 

## What Is Amazon FBA and How Does It Work?

The Amazon FBA is a service offered by Amazon that allows online sellers to automate order fulfillment and shipping services. Also referred to as Fulfillment by Amazon, the service utilizes the concept; you sell, and Amazon does the rest of the heavy lifting. 

With FBA, as an online seller, you get to utilize the numerous warehouses that Amazon owns without worrying about the logistics part of the business. Your role is to send your products to Amazon, who will warehouse your products and process orders as they come in. In fulfillment by Amazon, Amazon handles all of the shipping, returns, refunds, product warehousing, picking, and packaging. 

The biggest perk that comes with Amazon FBA is inventory management plus storage. As an Amazon seller, you won't need to spend any upfront capital to cater to your products' storage. While this does come with monthly fee charges to Amazon, not stressing about aspects like storage and shipping leaves you free to focus on other parts of your business, like marketing. 

Speaking of marketing, using Amazon FBA allows you to associate your business with one of the biggest marketing platforms in the world, Amazon. 

It doesn't stop there, though. Like you would if you didn't rely on Amazon to make sales, you still need to market your products on platforms available to you. Social media is one of the ways you can market your FBA business and increase its sales on and off of Amazon. 

## 2 Ways to Use Social Media With Amazon FBA
To improve your sales on Amazon, you need to know how to use social media in collaboration with your Amazon FBA business. Any content marketing effort you weigh in your FBA journey will prove most fruitful with a formal strategy. Creating pretty graphics is not enough in this day and age of social media to drive traffic and increase ROI.

While long-term social goals can mean new leads, more sign-ups, and conversions, shorter-term goals like reach and community building are paramount to your social footprint.

## Focus on Customer Engagement
People who visit Amazon are either looking for a specific product or want to see reviews about a product they are thinking about purchasing. For your Amazon FBA business to succeed, you need to go beyond just the confines of Amazon shoppers. Sure, Amazon brings a ton of traffic to your listings, but the goal is to ultimately be diverse on and off of Amazon.

![Social-Media-Management-Amazon-FBA-Business-(3).png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Social-Media-Management-Amazon-FBA-Business-(3).png-f2b51232b84e79a91396c505fe20de5a.png)

Getting your customers engaged relies on you providing them with content that sparks engagement at the right time. You need to reach potential customers and reveal a need they might not have realized before they began shopping on Amazon.

How do you do that? You take advantage of social media platforms and leverage engaging content linked to your Amazon product detail page to boost your FBA sales. 

Your brand begins to build an authoritative presence by creating a trusted community. Shoppers, in turn, trust your brand so that when they find your products on Amazon, the choice to click add to cart is easy and the only real option available.

## Leverage Social Media Features and Campaigns

Platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, and LinkedIn are only growing in popularity in 2022. To really harness these social media platforms effectively to skyrocket your Amazon FBA sales, you’ll have to invoke an emotional response from your audience on these platforms. The best way to do that is by taking advantage of the features offered by each specific platform. 

We know that reel content on Instagram is currently being pushed more by the platform than other types of content. Invoke emotion through user-generated video and reel content, including personal stories that come off naturally. Use relevant low-volume hashtags to maximize content discovery, and stay on top of new trends and features offered by each platform.

## How to Boost Amazon Sales Through Social Media Marketing
Here are ways you can boost your Amazon FBA sales by leveraging the power of social media marketing. 

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### Choose Your Targeted Platforms and Influencers Wisely
Content is everything to the life of your Amazon FBA business, but the content you post should match the platform so that your audience resonates most with your brand and messaging.

The best way to capture users’ attention is by sharing valuable educational and informative content, compelling and inspirational, and promoting that content on the appropriate channel to meet your goals. 

Channels evolve, and you may post today what you may not have posted on one platform two years ago. This is why a formal social media strategy is so beneficial. It will help you determine the appropriate channel and content for your Amazon FBA business.

Influencers have become an integral voice through which businesses communicate their brand message. Targeting the right influencers will go a long way in boosting your Amazon sales. Connect and share photos with influencers who believe in your business and share your philosophy.  Make these terms clear before you start working with influencers.
Remember to treat influencers as esteemed members of your community–value them and their time, so they naturally want to be a part of your brand and share your brand and products with their audience.

### Link Your Social Channels to Your Amazon FBA Product Listing
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How do you bring them all of your channels together while at the same time driving traffic to your Amazon listing and storefront? Aside from Amazon PPC and Amazon advertising which boosts your on-Amazon visibility, you can also advertise your products via social media ads and add the link to your product detail page right in your social campaign. 

You can create a link in bio using Beacons.ai to add all of your links in one super-convenient place. Add your Amazon link in your Instagram and Facebook stories, swipe-up options, YouTube videos, and more to ensure your customers have a way of accessing everything from one platform.  

### Use Compelling Visuals, Video Content & Graphics

Social media marketing is all about visuals and what your message communicates. As the attention span of social media users continues to decline, now more than ever, businesses need to re-think their social media marketing strategies. 
Platforms like Instagram are all about what kind of visuals you can create, whereas perfectly poised content on TikTok isn't deemed to be valuable.

Here are some examples of per channel content on Instagram & Facebook:

**Feed Posts **- Ditch the content conundrum and post content that resonates with your audience. Still images, GIFs, memes, quotes, and more.
**Carousel Posts** (long-form content split into slides with easy to read, valuable information
**Reel Content** - Short video clips with text, calls to action, tips, and tricks.
**Stories** - Bit size mini video content that only stays viewable for 24 hours. Add question boxes, polls, gifs, and sliders to drive account engagement.

### Don’t Forget to Interact With Your Customers On Social Channels
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In your Amazon business, it's too easy to think your sales and positioning end after the purchase on Amazon. But often, you’ll find, even as a small private label brand, that customers are looking for you on social platforms.

Social media users interacting with brands want to feel heard and that someone is engaging with them and addressing their concerns instead of just pushing products 24/7. Engage with your audience on Amazon by addressing their reviews and questions and responding appropriately. When they find your brand on social channels, be responsive and welcoming and show them more of that brand they’ve come to love.

It’s essential to treat your audience as personally as possible, so they feel recognized and heard. While this doesn't have to be individual direct messages or time-consuming communication, it means responding to comments promptly, addressing every question or concern, and showing appreciation to your audience and following. Good social media managers know how to do this effortlessly. If such a customer doesn't feel listened to, the next thing would be to leave a bad review on your Amazon page, and that's not what you want. 

### Cross-Promote Your Amazon FBA Brand

Networking and tagging are a considerable part of social media marketing, and cross-promoting can help gain new followers and grow your reach. Sharing third-party content and tagging other influencers and brands in your social media posts is an exciting way to help you get more brand exposure and engagement and increase your social media following. 

### Put A Face to Your FBA Brand Name

You can do much with social media beyond posting about your products or services. Sometimes, your potential customers want to know more about you and what your brand is all about. 

Share photos of your employees or company events and personalize the experience by sharing some of the natural struggles of being an e-commerce entrepreneur. 

### Post Social Media Content Consistently and Regularly
Your social media strategy won't work if you post a few times a month. Social media is very fast-paced. While you post once a week, your competitors are posting several times a day. To increase your organic engagement, you should post a minimum of once per day on each platform. 

However, what is more important, is that whatever amount of content you decide to post, you keep consistent. So if you are in an awareness-building phase and decide to only post three times per week, you maintain that schedule until the next step of your strategy.

It helps if you have a content calendar like Later or Buffer, and this is something your social media management team can handle monthly or weekly. Posting regularly will keep your brand relevant and increase engagement and followers, which will help boost your Amazon sales. 

### Test Your Methods and Measure Results

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Yes, you need to post regularly to maintain brand relevance. However, ensure that you are not overwhelming your customers with more information than they can handle. The best thing about social media is seeing how well a post performs with the right tools. 

Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer extensive account insights and analytics like how many people your post has reached. Using these analytics, you can tell what posts perform well and at what time so that you can adjust your posting to a time when your audience is more "alert."

What's the use of putting all the effort and resources into a social media campaign if you are not going to measure results? Are your posts gaining the traction you want to boost your Amazon sales? If they are, what can you do to make it even better? And if they are not, what changes can you implement to ensure your social media campaign works for your business?

Conclusion 

Social media is a powerful tool that increases your brand exposure when used well. Having social media profiles on major social platforms will boost your Amazon sales significantly in this day and age. Find out what works for your FBA business, and post engaging content regularly. 

With billions of people using social media every day, marketing your products on Amazon and your website alone will not cut it. You need to tap into the ever-growing social media world. 

Not sure how to create a social media strategy for your Amazon FBA brand? Christina Ink can help. 

[Contact Christina Ink to get started.](https://christinaink.com/e-commerce-copywriting-and-content-solutions/e-commerce-copywriting-and-content-solutions/)



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How To Boost Amazon FBA Sales Through Social Media

This article will explain how to manually pull and use the inventory reconciliation report to find discrepancies in your inventory and ask for reimbursements. This is the manual process to find out discrepancies in your inventory, but several tools in the market do it automatically and even ask for a reimbursement on your behalf.

If you are using Amazon fulfillment services (FBA) to fulfill your products. The only way to manage your inventory by looking at the number of units shipped over a period of time vs. the number of units sold and available. When these numbers don’t match, we need to look for lost, returned, and damaged items.

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I recommend downloading the Inventory Reconciliation report at least once a month and checking for any discrepancies to request a reimbursement.

## How to Reconcile your Inventory? Step-by-step
1. Go to Seller Central > Click Reports > From the drop-down menu click Fulfillment.

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2. From the left side menu, go to Inventory > Click on Inventory Reconciliation.

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You can choose between “View Online” which is a single search, or “Download” to get the full report on the Inventory Reconciliation page. The single search gives you the information of any individual SKU in a date range. If you choose to download the report, it will provide you with the movements and ending quantities of every SKU in your inventory in a specific date range.

3. Click on Download and choose the date range you want to reconcile.

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4. After you download the report, you need to convert the columns in a table to filter the information faster. #ExcelTip — Select all the information in the spreadsheet, click Alt+N+T, then hit enter and you will have a table of information that will look like this:

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5. In the “lost” column (13) filter all the numbers to get a list of all the SKUs that were misplaced/lost in the fulfillment center. We will use the list of lost items to manually check if Amazon reimbursed us or we need to request a reimbursement.

6. Go to Reports > Fulfillment > Inventory > Inventory Adjustments. Copy one SKU or FNSKU of the list of lost items and paste it in the correspondent field in the Inventory Adjustment page.

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This will generate a detailed report of all the units that were misplaced. In this example, I have 8 units lost, 3 units damaged at Amazon and 2 units found.

7. Click on the arrow next to the reason for the transaction and check if Amazon has reimbursed you or if they found your item. In my case, Amazon reimbursed me for all the units lost and damaged.

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8. Click on the word “Reimbursed” to go to the reimbursements report which gives you all the transaction information like date, reimbursement ID, quantities, total amount, etc.

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I always check the reimbursements report because sometimes Amazon reimbursed for less money than they should. The formula for the reimbursement amount (RA) is your price (P) minus the Amazon referral fee or any applicable fees (%).

## Reimbursement Formula: P - % = RA

If in Step 7 you don’t see an arrow next to the transaction reason, this means that Amazon hasn’t taken any action to solve the issue. They neither have reimbursed you nor found your items. Considering that Amazon can take up to 45 days to take action, if your transaction is out of that waiting period, you can open a case to request a reimbursement.

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## How to Open a Case to Request a Reimbursement? Step-by-Step

1.	Go to help in the top right corner of Seller Central > Scroll down to the bottom of the page > Click “Get Support” in the Need more help? section.

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2. Click “Selling on Amazon” > Scroll down and click on “Or, browse for your issue in the menu”

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3. In the left side menu, click on “Fulfillment by Amazon” to open more options > click on “Inventory Damaged or Inventory Lost in Warehouse”

4. Then select the reason for the reimbursement request, which can be lost or damaged. For this example, I selected “Investigate Inventory Lost in FBA Warehouse”


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How to get your money back from lost and damaged FBA inventory?

Every Amazon seller must know what stranded inventory is and how to deal with it. Here you will find the basics of this concept.

According to Amazon, “Stranded inventory is an inventory at a fulfillment center that does not have an active offer on Amazon.” In other words, your product is hidden in the back of the store, and shoppers can’t see it or buy it.

Or, in some cases, your product is in the middle of the sea, and nobody knows.

And if this wasn’t stressful enough, that time is costing you money in storage fees, potential sales loss, and less cash flow during the stranded period. Stranded inventory also affects the IPI (Inventory Performance Index) and can limit your storage space in FBA.

Amazon gives sellers 30 days from the day it gets stranded to resolve the problem until it is removed or disposed from Amazon’s Fulfilment Center. It requires active action to find the main cause and fixing the problem.

In the Fix Stranded Inventory dashboard, you have all the SKU or ASIN information and the hints to solve the issue. Necessary fields (hints) to check: the date of stranded, stranded reason, and quantities. This information will help you understand the cause, the time you have to resolve it, and the affected quantities.

## Top Reasons for Stranded Inventory

Merchant Fulfilled (DG info required) — this happens to all ASINs that require FBA dangerous goods (DG) review process. You need to fill a form to let Amazon know what kind of products they have in their warehouse.

Pricing errors — too high or too low prices can trigger an alert and get your ASINs stranded. It can be easily fixed by changing your listing’s minimum and maximum price. However, sometimes this is not enough. #Tip: Amazon stands for fair and lower prices, so try to price your products accordingly to the Buy Box and marketplace.

Listing errors — is when your listing has a mismatch of information. For example, the ASIN is not connected to an SKU in your inventory, the listing was deleted from your inventory, or listing quality issue. Review your listing and verify that all information is correct.

Suspended listing — this can happen for several reasons. It can be that your listing requires more information (description, images, bullet points, etc.) or that Amazon suspended your listing (e.g., poor voice of the customer performance). In this case, you need to review all the possible causes and address them.

There are many other reasons why your listings can go to stranded inventory, such as brand restrictions, expired products, item discontinued, listing closed, restricted ASINs, or incomplete listing. I will explain each of the reasons in the next story from the #FBAseries.

So next time you see some stranded inventory, don’t panic! Just find the clues of the root cause and get to work. Most cases can be resolved without help from Seller Support, but if you need, open a case and explain your issue.

If you want to know more about it, let me know in the comments and follow for more information about the topic. I will develop the #FBAseries with a lot of content to be one Amazon catalog savvy.







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Stranded Inventory and How to Fix It

As an Amazon seller and account manager over the years, I have developed the following theory of The Three Pillars of Selling on Amazon. It explains the components needed to build a successful business for the long term. The pillars are the core fundaments for the structure success. What — Product, How — Management, and Why — Marketing. Each pillar is equally important and interdependent.
These concepts can be applied to any Amazon business model. Private label, wholesale, arbitrage, print on demand, etc.

## WHAT? The product.
Products are key elements of any business but giving it all the money, time, and attention will predict the failure on the quest to become a successful Amazon seller.
Products are the things sellers offer on Amazon, tangible items that customers need or want. Often, courses and self-proclaimed gurus over-focus on the product, thinking it is the most important part of the business. The mentality of “Let’s see what is selling on Amazon,” “What is doing well right now,” and “What customers are looking for” is overrated and saturating the market with things that no one wants, needs, or would pay for.
Although sellers can have great products, poor management and marketing will make the structure susceptible to failure in the long term.

## HOW? The management.

Management ranges from day-to-day tasks on Seller Central, managing a team, the relationships with providers or suppliers, reading reports and understanding finances, customer service, and playing by Amazon standards.
Many sellers are underrating the importance of having good software, an efficient team, and learning Amazon’s playbook. When management becomes the gorilla in the room, every task feels like climbing a mountain. We know that to get to the top of a mountain, we need proper gear (software), a team (VAs, agencies, community), and experience (knowledge).
The internal elements that build a good management foundation for Amazon businesses are:
Software: programs and tools to make tasks faster, automatic, or invisible. For example, repricing, requesting reviews, reading reports. Softwares like Keepa, Helium10, Jungle Scout, etc. This element will significantly improve the account performance and save time and money for the seller.
Team: having knowledgeable, efficient, and proactive people in the company is essential to succeed. Hiring the right VA or working with an experienced agency will help sellers cover their weaknesses and focus on what they are good at.
Knowledge & Processes: entrepreneurs must always be learning, not only because Amazon is an ever-changing environment but also to be a better leader. Sellers need to understand at some level every aspect of the business to use tools properly and measure the performance to accomplish goals. This doesn’t mean that they need to be experts but having awareness is key. The processes are like formulas and they are critical to the success of the team running software or relationships. Having processes in place will help the business grow.
In a community of like-minded people, sellers can find and build knowledge and a team. People with a growth mindset will accelerate the trajectory for success.

## WHY? The marketing.

Marketing is why customers will buy your products or why brands will work with your company. It covers both the front and back end of selling. From your product’s packaging, keywords on your listing, pictures and videos, customers’ reviews, PPC, promotions, to maintaining customer relationships, doing email marketing, providing the best customer service.
Questions that marketing answers: Why is the company in business? What is its purpose? Where is the value? The quality of these answers is as good as the entrepreneur and team behind the business.
This is the ever-changing pillar. The one that gives the style, shape, and color to the building is always renewed based on trends, tricks, tactics, strategies, and Amazon’s algorithm.
The pillars are interconnected, and one can not succeed without the others. Knowing these principles will help sellers have a holistic view of what it takes to be successful in Amazon; applying them to their business will be a game-changer.
The work here is to evaluate your Amazon business as a building with three pillars. Are the pillars strong? Do they have solid foundations? Are they working together to support the business? The answers to these questions will help sellers find their weaknesses and to build them up to guarantee their success in the long term.
Like any structure, flaws in its columns will compromise the building’s integrity at some point. If a business is lacking or weak in any of the pillars, it will fail in the future, even if it is working at present. Especially when scaling is the next step, growth is a magnifying glass for weaknesses. And the more it grows, the more solid its pillars should be.
I hope this article adds value and gives you a broader perspective if you are considering selling on Amazon or if you are already selling, let me know what do you think about the theory. Questions? Leave them in the comments and follow me @fulltimeamazon for more.





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Three Pillars of Selling on Amazon Online Stores

The Buy Box is a crucial factor to improve the overall selling performance of every Amazon seller. The majority of the sales go through the buy box because is the easiest and comfortable place for customers to buy.

## What is the buy box?
It is the magical rectangle on a product detail page where customers can purchase products with one click—located on the website on the right side of the page and mobile under the price. The Buy Box only shows products in new conditions, and it does not always have the lowest price.
The Buy Box is a marketing opportunity that every seller should aim at. It consists of the best offer possible that can be designed and attained by being strategic about it.
It contains a lot of information like:
Condition of the product
Pricing
Shipping and Returns details
Name of the Seller
Fulfillment type
Quantity
Warranties or gift options (just for some products)
"Add to Cart" and "Buy Now" buttons
These two last features are the Buy Box's critical elements because they make the buying process seamless, quick, and convenient. When these buttons are not showing on a product detail page, the listing doesn't have a Buy Box.
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This is why Buy Box winners usually have a very good conversion rate because it makes the shopping experience way simpler, people can buy with a click.
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This virtual real state is shared between the qualified sellers on the listing. Sellers compete for the ownership of the golden button because once they are on it, the clicks and sales are going to them.
There can be only one seller at a time in the Buy Box (it considers location). Other sellers can be found in the secondary Buy Box, which is the space under the central rectangle with the information of other offers.

## What makes it easier for a seller to win the Buy Box?

The Buy Box is made of a variety of factors that Amazon takes into account.  Some include:
The price and availability of the product
The shipping time and cost
The return policy and warranty
Customer reviews
Sellers can see the percentage of time winning the Buy Box for each ASIN by looking at their Business Reports.

## Why is the buy box so helpful?
The reason why the buy box can be so important and valuable it's because this feature improves the user experience.
A key pillar to build a brand's success is ease of use, alongside good products and reasonable prices. Even though it doesn't seem like it at first glance, the buy box embodies just that.
Because it makes the buying experience a lot simpler by giving the customers what they want with the least amount of effort.
This is why the buy box completes a good portion of all sales and why winning this space can mean a significant step forward for every seller.

## FACTS & MYTHS

Because Amazon doesn't share how the Buy Box algorithm works, many things are said and shared that is wrong or partially true.
We want to share the facts and common misconceptions about the precious golden space with you.
Facts
82% of Amazon sales come from the Buy Box
Eligible sellers rotate the time in it
It is only for new condition offers
It is geographical
Myths
All listings have a Buy Box
The lowest price always wins
Only FBA offers are showcased in the space
Amazon never shares the Buy Box with third-party sellers (this myth is very controversial, but factually, it is not true)



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SellerSnap - 10% Off for 3 Months

> "There is no other repricer that can compare to Seller Snap. We used a rule-based repricer for a while, but when we broke it down, it was reducing our profit margins and not moving our old inventory. We told ourselves that if Seller Snap made back what it cost, it would be worth it. Well, as soon as we started it, it made back more than what it cost in the first day alone." - Alysha Rene

SellerSnap Supports: Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United States, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Egypt, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Singapore, and Australia.

If you're looking for a SellerSnap Coupon Code, Promo Code, or Discount, you're in the right place.

## So What's the SellerSnap Deal?

Get 10% Off For Your First 3 Months

## How to claim the SellerSnap Coupon?

1. Click "Use This Deal"
2. Copy the Coupon Code
3. Enter it on the Checkout page


**Affiliate Disclosure:** You can assume that basically every link on this website is an affiliate link. If you buy a software or service through our links, we get a commission at no cost to you. The more purchases you make through the site, the more resources we can invest in making it the #1 resource for Amazon Sellers and Ecommerce Brands. It's also how our partners know we're sending them leads, allowing them to provide better coupons, discounts, and promotions for our audience.

SellerSnap - 10% Off for 3 Months

What is the Buy Box? 

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How to grow a social media group in 3 minutes

_This is a guest post by Adam Leaf, a friend and Amazon consultant based out of Toronto, Canada._

Recently I started a new private label brand and wanted to get it enrolled in Amazon’s Brand Registry program. I managed to do this in approximately 12 hours and for the price of a few tanks of gas. Here is how I did it.

There are a few options available to brand owners that want to obtain a trademark to get into Amazon’s Brand Registry program, namely:

Completing a trademark application yourself
Going through Amazon’s IP Accelerator program
Hiring a lawyer in your home country to perfect and file a trademark application

In many cases, these options are costly, complicated and time consuming.

However, what many sellers do not know is that Amazon will accept a Trademark from a long list of countries for entry into their Brand Registry program. Also, once Amazon accepts a trademark into their Brand Registry program, almost all benefits of Brand Registry are global - meaning that if you upload A+ content in the USA marketplace, you can upload the same set in the Italian marketplace as well. 

These countries are:

United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Sweden, Poland, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates.

Almost all of these countries on this list have costs similar to filing for a trademark in the USA, except for 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚. In India, the cost for a foreign corporation to file a trademark in one class is INR 9000, which is approximately $118 USD. Of course, this is not including Attorney or “Advocate” fees charged by an Indian legal representative.

The highlight of filing a trademark in India is not only that it is a highly economical option for entrance into Amazon’s Brand Registry program - but that it can also be done very quickly. This is because, the minimum requirement for admission into Amazon’s Brand Registry program is a trademark serial number or application number - which the Indian government issues 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 through it’s e-filing system. 

So, while a pending Indian trademark may not provide intellectual property protection outside of India, it is a fantastic, affordable way for a new brand to truly test their products on Amazon, as they will be able to take advantage of some of Brand Registry’s highly sought after features - such as Sponsored Brands, A+ content, and Subscribe & Save (my favorite).

To put this into perspective, my new brand was fully enrolled in Brand Registry in approximately 12 hours - from the time of finding a lawyer located in India to receiving the email from Amazon Brand Registry congratulating me on my admission to the program.

I really hope this helps someone looking to improve their Brand on Amazon. Feel free to leave a comment with any questions! 




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Interested in Instant Brand Registry?

Talk with Adam Leaf today

Just click the link and scroll down to the contact page, and Adam will help you through the process. It's less than $125 and you can get brand registry the same day. 

Want to learn more? [Read Adam's guest blog post here](https://www.seller.deals/blog/15-instant-brand-registry-hack)

Instant Brand Registry 

𝙇𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙌𝙪𝙞𝙘𝙠 & 𝙀𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘽𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙍𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙮

Amazon pretty much invented the concept of personalized product recommendations and unique home pages for users.

Everyone sees a different Amazon. 

And this is driving 35% of the total sales. Which, if I did the math right - is almost $49.5 BILLION last year. 

So why do I never hear other Amazon experts talking about it?

Yeah, they might talk about FBT - Frequently bought together. 

But there’s an even easier way to get ranked highly in Amazon’s recommendation engine. 

And once you do, Amazon will be more likely to send you all kinds of organic traffic - leading to a boost in sales. 

Go to your Amazon order history, and you'll see the option to recommend this product or rate the recommendation. It's not a review, it's influencing the recommendation system only. 

You can ask buyers to go to their recommendations and rate you, and you'll notice an improvement in your sales. 

Ask them to go here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/yourstore/iyr/




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How to Hack The Engine Generating $49.5 billion in Amazon Sales. 

If you've ever seen me speak live, there's a good chance I mentioned the three growth levers for business. 

In fact, these are the only ways you can actually grow your business, and it's one of my core frameworks when I go into large Amazon companies in Chinese to rapidly grow them.

Most people are only focused on one of them, leaving massive amounts of cash on the table. 

Here they are:

1. Increase the total number of customers
2. Increase the frequency of purchase, the average number of times a customer buys from you. 
3. Increase your average order value, or selling price. 

That's it. 

It's a simple concept, but the effects of each stack and multiply 

a 30% increase in each of these metrics will double your revenue. 

To get a 30% increase in each of these isn't that hard. 

The problem for most sellers is... they don't have enough products to add upsells and cross sells, and launching new products is too capital intensive or time consuming.

So what's the easy solution? 

**Add Affiliate offers, digital products, and dropshipped products to your lineup!**

Imagine this - you sell dog supplements on Amazon, and your profit per sale is $10. 

We already know the customer has a dog, so we can market other products for their dog. 

After opening up www.offervault.com and CJ Affiliate, I can see dozens of affiliate offers for pet owners - everything from dog food subscriptions, doggie dental plans, doggie CBD, Chewy.com, Pet health insurance, and hundreds more, with payouts ranging from $20-$150+ 

If just a few customers buy these affiliate products -from your product inserts or emails - you'll be making a lot more money. 




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There Are Only 3 Ways To Grow Your Business

As an entrepreneur, you need to be prepared for the worst. 

and one sunny day in Mexico City - it happened to me. 

My backpack was stolen from right in front of me outside a Condesa coffeeshop, and inside - my MSI laptop, my passport, vaccine card, a few hundred in cash, my podcast microphone and more.

A few tacos and a few hours later, I was up and running again. 

So here's what I set up before my trip to make sure that I would be functional even if my tech was stolen. 

## 1. Set up a virtual desktop

Virtual desktops have come a long way since I started using them. Just a few years ago, the lag was unbearable and the cost was unreasonable. Now, it's just as fluid as using your own computer. The key benefit, is you can log in from any computer in the world and maintain a safe connection. A virtual desktop can never be stolen or lost on the road.

Here are a few I recommend:

AWS Workspaces - easy to set up and deploy, insanely fast, but I wouldn't recommend running your amazon account on it.
Shadow: https://shadow.tech/ - your gaming PC in the cloud, perfect for playing games if you're a mac user as well. 

a new hybrid solution - mightyapp.com is also interesting. 

After you set up the virtual desktop - record the login details somewhere on the cloud where you can access them if something happens to your laptop.

## 2. Set up "Find my laptop" on windows, mac, and your phone

I didn't know that windows had this functionality - but you can turn on the ability to find or lock any windows device. It's not any use if your laptop is stolen before you turn it on though, so make sure to activate it. 

## 3. Use a password manager

Setting up a new device and logging into everything again is incredibly annoying. Use a password manager like LastPass and make sure you have the login credentials memorized.

## 4. Keep an authenticator app and skype number on the virtual desktop.

Keep your 2 factor auth apps and phone numbers on the virtual desktop, if your phone gets stolen or you lose it, you won't lose your access to important apps that require 2 factor. I recommend logging into important banking apps, social media, and amazon from your virtual desktop while you still have your phone so you can access them quickly.

## 5. Use iDrive or another cloud backup service

iDrive is the cloud backup software I use, but there are dozens out there, they crawl your computer daily and make a backup in the cloud - this was key to recover most of my important files when my laptop was stolen. 

## 6. Gradually move to the cloud.

It's 2022, why keep anything on your computer at all? I've moved almost 100% to cloud services and keep almost nothing on my laptop, I've found a new level of peace of mind, so create a plan to slowly move over. 

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Digital Nomad Tip - Run Your Business If Your Tech Gets Stolen On The Road

Clickup is the greatest productivity software to ever exist. 

It's a mindmap, whiteboard, kanban board, to do list, project management tool and document storage all in one. 

I've moved pretty much as much of my thinking as possible over to Clickup, and I feel less stressed and more in control of my life. 

Since I can't stop talking about it - people haved asked me, well, how do you use it? So in case it helps anyone else, here's a short look into how I keep things organized. 

## **My Clickup Spaces**

### Current Projects
In my current projects space - I keep a folder for each current project with all the lists and docs needed. 

### Daily Dump
I'm a huge fan of David Allen and the "Getting Things Done" method, so I start and end most workdays by writing out a "dump list" which is just every possible conceivable task you need to do - everything from renewing a passport to responding to a text or submitting an application. This way it's out of your head, it's captured, and you can act. 90% of my clickup activity and daily work is done here. 

So for this, I create a new list and title it with the date.

The other secret, is to write down the task in the form of the next physical tangible action you need to take. For example, if you need to hire a new VA on Onlinejobs.ph, you would write something like open chrome, go to onlinejobs.ph. For some reason this eliminates a lot of mental resistance to starting the task.

Once I have that done, I act on the list, delegating what I can, sorting it into what actually needs to get done, and then I just act on it. Anything that didn't get moved to done goes on tomorrow's list. 

###Gun to the Head
If I'm currently running a Gun To The Head challenge, I'll keep everything focused there, this is my highest priority and usually involves massive effort and planning to ensure I hit the goal on time and avoid losing the bet.

### Recurring
I have this broken down into 3 different lists - daily, weekly, and monthly. 
Then, I set up recurring tasks. The amazing thing about it is I can add new info, reminders, comments and links to the task the show up every time, so it works like a journal on the specific task. This was incredibly helpful learning spanish. 

### The Big Things
Keep other big priorities here

### Social
Remember to have a social life, and sometimes that requires making plans, being proactive, or just keeping lists of stuff you want to do with friends and loved ones. 

## Clickup Favorites:
### Work Journal
I keep a doc open for each month and add it to my favorites like "Work Journal - April", at the start of each day I write what I want to accomplish or just some thoughts, at the end of the day I write what I learned, interesting links, people to get back to and more. It's been really useful to see how my process and thoughts evolve over time. 

## Clickup Goals:
I use these to track my GTTH projects, Client work, and goals like Language Learning. 

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Clickup will change your life, check it out today

If you're looking for a Clickup Coupon Code, Promo Code, or Discount, you're in the right place.

## So What's the Clickup Deal?

Save 20% Off Any Business Plan

## How to claim the Clickup Coupon?

1. Click "Use This Deal"
2. Copy the Coupon Code
3. Enter it on the Checkout page


**Affiliate Disclosure:** You can assume that basically every link on this website is an affiliate link. If you buy a software or service through our links, we get a commission at no cost to you. The more purchases you make through the site, the more resources we can invest in making it the #1 resource for Amazon Sellers and Ecommerce Brands. It's also how our partners know we're sending them leads, allowing them to provide better coupons, discounts, and promotions for our audience.

Click Up - 20% Off Business Plan

Clickup Strategies

"Robert, Here's what I need to do in the next two weeks, and if I fuck up even one of these, I'll send you $1000 cash."

This is the **Gun To The Head** method to get massive results in your life quickly, and nothing has changed my life faster.

**Every two weeks, I call up a new friend, present what I need to do, and offer a large amount of cash if I fuck it up.**

It's a very public bet, since I make sure to pick someone that knows a lot of the same people, in this case - from the Blank Room, a clubhouse community of Amazon sellers that meets every single day for over a year. 

This strategy has consistently pushed me farther, faster, than I could ever imagine doing otherwise. 

It instantly focuses me and kills analysis paralysis, perfectionism and procrastination.

Here's what the bet is for the current two week cycle:

1. Add 120 Deals to Seller.Deals
2. Write at least 1 Paragraph/Benefit section for all 120 deals. 
3. Add 20 New Blog Posts 
4. Add 500 words for 20 of the deals
5. Write out the Email welcome series
6. Create all the organization and tracking for the project management
7. Hire a new employee to work on the site full time. 


More than 30,000 words of writing, dozens of zoom meetings with partners, and tons of work sourcing the deals and uploading them. 

It's a stretch, but not impossible. 

So here we are. 

If you have trouble growing your business, and you think you're the problem, or there's a new project you want to get started but you keep procrastinating - this is the ultimate solution. 

When we were younger, we always had hard external deadlines from our teachers, our parents and more. If we have a job, there's still a lot of external deadlines and motivation, but for solo entrepreneurs, it can be tough since there's no imposed pressure once you hit a point where you're comfortable. 

So you need to create that pressure yourself. 

**Here's how to run a Gun To The Head Challenge successfully.**

1. Figure out the goal and work backwards to decide what the tangible result - something that someone can look at and quickly verify - this is done or not done. 

2. Only select things you have direct control over - instead of "I'm going to make $10,000" like "I'm going to make 50 sales calls" would be better since it's directly what you have control over. 

3. Choose a short cycle time - for me 2 weeks works best

4. The bet doesn't need to be $1000, but it does need to be something you really don't want to lose - humans are much more motivated by the fear of losing something they already have vs gaining something new. 

5. It doesn't matter how you get to the goal - as long as the target is met. You can hire, you can outsource, you can automate, just get it to done.

6. Set up a "Goal" in Clickup with individual targets being the items you need to get done. I like clickup because it shows you a percentage of how far you are in the challenge, and you can set a wide variety of goal types. 

Every person I know that's implemented this has transformed their life. Try it today, decide what you want to do, and if you're really serious about doing it, put some money on the line. 






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Sometimes you need a Gun To The Head - How to Consistently Take Massive Action

I've been to hundreds of Amazon meetups and conferences around the world. From Bangkok to Barcelona, and there's a common theme. 

In the eyes of most Amazon sellers and even the speakers at these conferences, marketing is limited to 4-5 different tools or channels. 

It's always the same: 

1. Amazon Ads
2. Facebook Ads
3. Manychat
4. Clickfunnels or if you're lucky, Google. 

One of my favorite moments of past speeches I've done comes from introducing sellers to the wider world of marketing. 

I show the logos of those four tools everyone else is talking about, and then flip to the next screen, with more than 8000 new companies. Don't worry though, you don't need to learn every single one to start unlocking new potential for your business. 

Here it is - the marketing landscape on one single infographic. 

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Enter the Martech 5000, which has grown to more than 8000 tools. 

It's an amazing index of what's new and working in marketing, covering everything from DSPs and Programatic to customer retention or affiliate tracking. 

I've found a lot of my favorite tools from playing around with this list, most notably might be Typeform, which allowed me to test any idea at warpspeed and even replaced a lot of my need to build out websites. I use it for everything. 

If you're curious about the wider world of marketing and what it can do for your business, then check out this list: 

https://martech5000.com/

Another site I check daily, is www.ProductHunt.com, highly recommended since it's a bit easier to search. 

Test out some tools from the Martech5000 and Producthunt and you'll keep your ecommerce business innovative, fresh, and fun - unlocking new experiences for your customers and new ways for you to operate, while staying ahead of your complacent Amazon competition. 





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Unlock 8000 Marketing Tools And Stay Ahead Of The Competition

**Can’t find a product? Check these 6000 Niches**

If you just look at Junglescout or Helium 10 to search site wide on Amazon, you’re going to find the same products as everyone else.

Instead, look through the category lists from Amazon and Google Shopping to find niches to investigate, and THEN use Helium10 or Junglescout

These are lists of literally thousands of product categories covering everything from medical mannequins to marine electronics to home fireplaces.

You can use these to find niches not just for Amazon, but for anything Ecom.


[Google Shopping's Product Taxonomy](https://www.google.com/basepages/producttype/taxonomy.en-US.txt)

[Amazon's 5th Level Categories](https://amz30-downloads.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/AMZ-FifthLevelCategories.xlsx)

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Can’t find a product? Check these 6000 Niches

Image Hacks from the Valuelink “Brand Factory”

“We’re making a brand factory,” Dima said, just moments after placing a $1 million order of dildos from our factory.

We were part of a “special operations” unit in Valuelink, to test if western style branding and marketing would really outperform the “spray and pray” style of Chinese Amazon.

Our mission: find what works, boil it down to SOPs, and apply it to the dozens of brands in the company. Create a brand blueprint we could use to spit out successful brands on demand.

Today, I’ll show you one of the results of our experiments –  two of our product images that consistently led to massive increases in our conversion rate and average order value and I’ll break them down to explain why they work so well.

Pushing the Limit on Amazon

Being an experienced Amazon seller is about knowing where to push the limits of the TOS. What I’m about to mention might even be considered grey hat. But the penalties for image violations are typically quite small. The image might be removed. As always, the decision is up to you.

Your Product Images Are The Most Viewed Area On Your Listing!

**Image Hack #1: Social Proof**
This image had a crazy effect on our conversion rates. We were also able to re-purpose it and use it in many different marketing campaigns.

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You need to use social proof wherever you can online, and instead of leaving it up to your customers to randomly read reviews, show them the reviews you want them to see first to frame how they read the rest of their reviews.

Showing real pictures of your customers is an awesome hack for Amazon that few sellers are using. These pictures have been on the listing since 2016 and they’re still being used. They work.


**Image Hack #2: Tiered Discounts to boost AOV**
Almost every one has a tiered promo on Amazon set up.

You know, buy 2 save 5%, buy 3, save 10%, etc.

But what most people miss is that the special offers/product promotions section is… almost invisible on mobile. this means your potential buyers will probably never see it.

So how do we get incentivize them to buy more units on mobile and boost our average ticket value? Easy – put it IN THE IMAGE.

![Buy-More.jpg](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/Buy-More.jpg-197cea0352517b7294ab838b8fc9eb8d.jpg)


I don’t know why everyone needed two of the same vibrator. But it didn’t matter, people were buying like crazy, and when we used the same image on our supplements, people went from buying 1 bottle… to 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. It was amazing.

Put this to the test today. Just send those pictures to your graphic designer and have them whip something up.

Or if you don't have a graphic designer - try out an unlimited graphic design service under the "creative" category on Seller.Deals

Stay Tuned,

Zack



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Image Hacks from the Valuelink “Brand Factory”

If you listened to other Amazon experts talk about ranking and launching, you’d go crazy. 

Constantly dreaming up more and more elaborate, time consuming, and difficult processes to rank keywords. 

What you need is something 

Simple to explain,

Simple to set and forget,

with Huge results. 

No 80 step Manychat flow with 18 integrations.

Enter the Slow Burn strategy, a ninja trick to boost sales velocity and keyword ranking in a controlled way, without losing money, and works like magic on low to mid competition keywords. 

It’s so simple, you’ll think it’s common sense. But I’ve never seen another seller set this up. 

It works to help you get an extra 5-10 sales a day for your product on a specific keyword. In low competitive niches, this can be enough to get you ranking and get the product moving. But it’s simple enough to set up as insurance on your products and can even work to bring products back from the dead. 

When I was running Natrogix, I used this same strategy on every product at launch and throughout the product lifecycle and we ranked more than 100 supplements on page 1 for dozens of keywords.

So here it is: 

1. Create accounts on deal sites like Snagshout, Rebatekey, etc that allow for superURLs or some kind of Search Find Buy. 
2. Set up a month long campaign
3. Set your max discount at your breakeven price and the keyword you want. 
4. Set for 5-10 units per day. 

You might need to set up the same campaigns on multiple sources to make sure you get enough traffic, but typically these sites have the traffic, everyone loves a deal. 

These consistent daily sales help rank for low and mid competition keywords and boosts overall sales velocity, helping you win in the long term, while losing nothing. 

Test it out for yourself, and let me know how it goes



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The Keep It Simple "Slow Burn" ranking strategy

There are many ways to scale your Amazon business. 

Sell in more countries, Sell on new platforms, Add more products 

But there’s another way to scale that I rarely see western sellers use. 

It’s widely used by the largest Amazon companies in China, and it’s the easiest growth method I’ve ever seen.

This tip alone is literally a business multiplier that has taken great brands and transformed them into empires. 

I can’t believe I’m going to share it, but here we go.

There are four major ways to add serious volume and scale to your business

Expand to a new country
Expand to a new product category
Expand to a new platform
Create a new brand
Each of these comes with different chances of success and failure, and some scaling methods are much easier than others.

Let’s talk about them.

Selling in a new Country:

Pros: This can quickly add volume to your sales, and make you feel like an international business rockstar when you wake up to sales coming in from all over the world.

Cons: But there are major complexities. You have new tax laws, new logistical challenges, new product compliance requirements, and a different competitive landscape, and add some language barriers on top, and in many ways, it’s just like launching for the first time.

Category Extension

Pros: Releasing new product categories under your brand can help you make more money from your existing customers with cross selling. You don’t really need to employ new staff members or to learn a new marketplace

Cons: You do need to find new suppliers and occasionally deal with other unforeseen obstacles like category approvals and a new competitive landscape

Create a New Brand with the SAME products

Many Chinese Sellers take their best selling products, put them in a new package, with a new logo, and sell it on Amazon as a new brand.

If you search for certain products, it looks like an entire page of different sellers, but really one seller might own all those listings. Completely dominating the category.

Here’s why it’s a genius idea:

Simple and Fast: Other than some design work, there’s nothing to it. You can have a new brand up in a week or two. You can use the same supplier, same staff, same logistics, and even the same keywords.
Take up more space on the shelf – Amazon is basically a giant retail store – the more space you take up on the shelf, the more sales you get. With this strategy, you can own entire categories and unleash the potential of your products.
Inside information: You already know everything about the category you’re selling in – the competitive landscape, keyword data, deep product knowledge – you can reuse this information and pump out multiple brands.
High chance of success – this is the type of scaling method that has the highest chance of success.

Here’s an example. Looking at the best sellers in lightning cables – we can see two brands owned by the same company. One brand highlighted in blue, another in red. They sell more than $70 million a year with this strategy.

![multi-brand.png](https://aohpcwrlpqkvyjmchgau.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/media/local/multi-brand.png-67af04ccabca07b4a5d482ab040dec52.png)

If you’re already successful in one category – the easiest way to scale is to keep launching the same products under a new brand. Try it out for yourself and watch your business grow

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From 0 to 5.5 Million Orders a Year – The Chinese Secret for Scaling an Amazon Business

The Amazon “Flu Shot”
I’ve been thinking a lot about vaccines and the immune system recently.

Odds are, you are too.

Vaccines use a weakened form of a virus to teach your immune system how to handle the “real thing” – creating a powerful form of long-lasting resistance.

But this same concept works as a marketing and persuasion tool that can powerfully affect your Amazon sales… by attacking your own listing you can actually increase sales.

I know it sounds crazy

When potential buyers visit your listing, “smart” customers just go straight to your most critical reviews

and if they don’t like what they find, they’re out of there and buying their garlic press from someone else.

The trick to fixing this is to actually give yourself your “top critical review”

But to make it innocuous or even funny. So when that customer tries to look for the reason not to buy your product, they see either a weak attack against you, or something totally unrelated.

From the blog