How to Prepare for Prime Day 2022

1 00:00:03,573 --> 00:00:05,755 Hello and welcome to our webinar. 2 00:00:06,470 --> 00:00:07,824 My name is Matthew. 3 00:00:07,824 --> 00:00:09,856 I'm the B2B marketing manager here today. 4 00:00:10,458 --> 00:00:14,521 At Kaspien, and I'm here today to kind of intro our webinar topic 5 00:00:14,521 --> 00:00:15,800 and go through some housekeeping. 6 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:19,148 And then I'll pass it over to our wonderful speakers, Brittni 7 00:00:19,148 --> 00:00:23,738 and Taylor. So, our topic is how to prep for Prime Day 2022. 8 00:00:23,738 --> 00:00:26,597 We're going to be focusing on marketing and logistics. 9 00:00:27,838 --> 00:00:28,816 And as Taylor mentioned, 10 00:00:28,816 --> 00:00:32,202 we're going to be breaking this up over before, during and after Prime Day. 11 00:00:32,579 --> 00:00:35,701 We are going to have a live Q&A at the end of this webinar. 12 00:00:35,739 --> 00:00:39,952 So, if you have questions at any time, please do ask those in the chat 13 00:00:40,178 --> 00:00:42,209 and we'll address those during the Q&A. 14 00:00:42,962 --> 00:00:44,993 We also are recording this webinar. 15 00:00:45,068 --> 00:00:48,040 So, if you have to drop off early, pop out for a call, 16 00:00:48,718 --> 00:00:52,668 we will be sending a copy of the recording to you most likely tomorrow. 17 00:00:53,345 --> 00:00:57,069 With that, I'll pass it over to our speakers, starting with Taylor 18 00:00:59,590 --> 00:01:01,057 Thank you, Matthew, for that 19 00:01:01,057 --> 00:01:05,910 lovely introduction, and I'll introduce myself. 20 00:01:05,910 --> 00:01:07,039 I'm Taylor Smits. 21 00:01:07,039 --> 00:01:11,177 I'm the co-founder of MyFBAPrep, and right now 22 00:01:11,177 --> 00:01:15,729 I'm focusing my efforts as the head of supply chain for MyFBAPrep. 23 00:01:16,669 --> 00:01:19,340 Brittni, thanks for having me and I'll let you introduce yourself. 24 00:01:19,942 --> 00:01:21,372 Hi, everyone. 25 00:01:21,372 --> 00:01:24,306 My name is Brittni Rizzo and I work at Kaspien 26 00:01:24,306 --> 00:01:27,128 as one of the search marketing coordinators 27 00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:30,175 A little bit about myself, 28 00:01:30,175 --> 00:01:34,802 I manage a lot of the search marketing campaigns 29 00:01:34,802 --> 00:01:37,774 here for a lot of agency as well as retail partners. 30 00:01:38,527 --> 00:01:42,815 And Kaspien as a whole has been around since 2008. 31 00:01:43,304 --> 00:01:48,910 And in that time we've generated over $1 billion in sales. 32 00:01:49,361 --> 00:01:53,499 And a big part of that growth has been our in-house marketing team 33 00:01:53,499 --> 00:01:57,562 and the strategies and the milestones that we've hit over the years 34 00:01:57,562 --> 00:02:02,039 so, a lot of testing, a lot of trying something with one partner 35 00:02:02,415 --> 00:02:06,365 and trying something with another has really grown the sales. 36 00:02:06,365 --> 00:02:12,008 So, we come from a long line of strategies and data and experience. 37 00:02:12,347 --> 00:02:14,679 So that's a little bit about Kaspien and myself. 38 00:02:16,448 --> 00:02:16,749 Great. 39 00:02:16,749 --> 00:02:18,065 Thanks. For that. 40 00:02:19,119 --> 00:02:21,790 Let me explain what MyFBAPrep is. 41 00:02:21,790 --> 00:02:25,476 MyFBAPrep is a global network 42 00:02:25,476 --> 00:02:29,615 of warehouses that perform prep services, most specifically, 43 00:02:29,615 --> 00:02:32,135 as you may have guessed, for Amazon sellers. 44 00:02:33,076 --> 00:02:35,107 We started in the U.S. 45 00:02:35,107 --> 00:02:37,741 and grew and grew and grew. 46 00:02:37,778 --> 00:02:41,841 We now have actually 58 global warehouses 47 00:02:42,142 --> 00:02:46,958 outside the US, big presences in Canada, the U.K., Germany, 48 00:02:47,748 --> 00:02:50,494 any of the big Amazon marketplaces, and 49 00:02:51,585 --> 00:02:55,347 most recently, Italy, Poland, and a few others. 50 00:02:56,287 --> 00:02:58,657 I often will use this analogy 51 00:02:58,657 --> 00:03:01,968 to explain what MyFBAPrep is to people outside 52 00:03:01,968 --> 00:03:05,918 Amazon who are unfamiliar, and I'll do that now with you guys. 53 00:03:06,783 --> 00:03:10,282 I use an Airbnb analogy and everyone knows what Airbnb is, 54 00:03:10,282 --> 00:03:12,012 which is why the analogy is good. 55 00:03:12,012 --> 00:03:16,452 Airbnb is there to connect travelers with homeowners 56 00:03:17,317 --> 00:03:20,778 and Airbnb has a platform where you can search and transact, 57 00:03:21,831 --> 00:03:24,051 let's say, as the traveler with the homeowners. 58 00:03:24,352 --> 00:03:28,866 So my FBA prep is a platform that connects large e-commerce businesses 59 00:03:29,242 --> 00:03:33,644 with warehouses in our network that perform the services they're looking for. 60 00:03:34,284 --> 00:03:38,648 FBA Prep being obviously the largest and most popular, but we do other things like FBM 61 00:03:39,701 --> 00:03:43,952 direct to consumer bundles, kitting, subscription boxes, etc. 62 00:03:44,591 --> 00:03:48,692 As a slide says we have over 6 million square feet of operating space 63 00:03:48,692 --> 00:03:51,965 and that gets a little bit bigger every month, every two months, 64 00:03:51,965 --> 00:03:56,856 and we do well over a million units prepped per month. 65 00:03:57,307 --> 00:04:00,994 I did check the numbers the other day and found out 66 00:04:01,107 --> 00:04:05,997 last month was right around 1.8 million units prepped 67 00:04:07,540 --> 00:04:09,947 So we're going to we're going to arrange this webinar 68 00:04:10,211 --> 00:04:13,709 into before, during and after prime day tips. 69 00:04:13,709 --> 00:04:17,885 And I think for our listeners out there, the best way to think of this 70 00:04:18,863 --> 00:04:21,309 within those timeframes are 71 00:04:21,309 --> 00:04:24,356 logistics tips and marketing and advertising tips. 72 00:04:25,071 --> 00:04:29,359 I will speak to the logistics and warehousing side and Brittni, 73 00:04:29,359 --> 00:04:32,106 of course, more on the on the marketing and advertising. 74 00:04:33,949 --> 00:04:36,883 So we'll get started with before prime day. 75 00:04:37,147 --> 00:04:40,834 Really, what should you be thinking about from a warehousing 76 00:04:40,834 --> 00:04:44,558 or logistics side in advance of Prime Day? 77 00:04:44,859 --> 00:04:49,599 So clearly the most important thing you can do in preparation for Prime Day 78 00:04:49,862 --> 00:04:53,135 is to ensure you have the right quantity and variety of SKUs at Amazon. 79 00:04:53,474 --> 00:04:56,333 Now, this applies whether you are a private label seller 80 00:04:56,333 --> 00:04:57,875 and you own your own brand 81 00:04:57,875 --> 00:05:01,261 or whether you're a wholesaler or you follow an agency model 82 00:05:01,374 --> 00:05:05,023 where you're selling products from a brand that you don't own. 83 00:05:06,189 --> 00:05:09,124 But the focus here is, of course, getting goods into FBA. 84 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:12,585 I promise we will get more specific 85 00:05:12,585 --> 00:05:16,008 than this general bit of advice that I'm sure everyone knows already 86 00:05:17,062 --> 00:05:19,808 throughout this webinar, but this is a good starting point. 87 00:05:19,846 --> 00:05:23,231 So if you're thinking about having an increase 88 00:05:23,231 --> 00:05:26,279 in volume or an inventory so that you can sell more, 89 00:05:26,467 --> 00:05:29,627 you'll probably need to learn how to do FBA prep at scale. 90 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:34,480 You can do something like start sending inventory into Amazon earlier 91 00:05:34,630 --> 00:05:37,640 or you can talk to a third party if you're not doing your own prep 92 00:05:38,844 --> 00:05:42,756 and look at what sort of capacity they have to help you with— 93 00:05:42,756 --> 00:05:46,443 With this point as far as scaling the prep beforehand. 94 00:05:46,481 --> 00:05:48,700 And of course, that's what that's what we do professionally. 95 00:05:50,017 --> 00:05:52,726 If you're a private label seller or even a wholesaler, 96 00:05:52,914 --> 00:05:56,751 it often makes sense to look at suppliers and manufacturers from different regions. 97 00:05:56,977 --> 00:06:00,701 The reason here, of course, is you don't want any single bottleneck 98 00:06:00,701 --> 00:06:04,802 or supply chain failure to cost you an entire Prime Day. 99 00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:08,413 So that diversification strategy can really come in handy 100 00:06:08,413 --> 00:06:11,122 when it comes to making sure you are in fact, able to land 101 00:06:11,460 --> 00:06:14,771 the appropriate amount of inventory at Amazon in advance of prime day. 102 00:06:16,238 --> 00:06:16,802 You also want to 103 00:06:16,802 --> 00:06:20,828 look at your IPI score, which will have an effect on 104 00:06:21,053 --> 00:06:24,138 how many units Amazon will allow you to send in. 105 00:06:24,665 --> 00:06:27,562 There were lots of issues 106 00:06:27,562 --> 00:06:30,684 which I won't go into during COVID with 107 00:06:30,684 --> 00:06:33,506 inventory levels being limited, but right now, I think 108 00:06:33,506 --> 00:06:36,402 if you pay attention to your IPI score and positively 109 00:06:36,666 --> 00:06:40,541 affecting what you can send in, that's the high-level tip here. 110 00:06:41,782 --> 00:06:47,312 And then of course, we get into inventory forecasting a little. 111 00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:50,021 Hey Taylor, I have a question. 112 00:06:50,021 --> 00:06:51,563 Yeah. Yeah. 113 00:06:51,563 --> 00:06:55,777 How much inventory should people think about sending in, especially since 114 00:06:56,228 --> 00:06:59,050 the pandemic has impacted Amazon 115 00:06:59,614 --> 00:07:02,135 in 2020 as well as 2021? 116 00:07:03,639 --> 00:07:05,558 Yeah, that's—that's a great question. 117 00:07:05,558 --> 00:07:10,787 So I think what you're touching on is that in 2021 118 00:07:11,239 --> 00:07:14,925 and 2020 because of the pandemic there, there was often 119 00:07:15,490 --> 00:07:18,387 a massive uptick in increase in sales for sellers. 120 00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:22,224 And so as we're looking at 2022 and seeing how much we need 121 00:07:22,224 --> 00:07:25,271 to send into prime day, you—you have to ask yourself as a seller, 122 00:07:25,271 --> 00:07:29,898 Well, am I going after these maybe inflated numbers from recent years 123 00:07:29,898 --> 00:07:33,999 inflated because of the pandemic? Or do I look at previous years 124 00:07:34,187 --> 00:07:36,820 which were in quote unquote more normal times? 125 00:07:37,460 --> 00:07:39,341 What would I recommend here? 126 00:07:39,341 --> 00:07:43,667 And what you'll see is to base your inventory predictions on 2021. 127 00:07:45,097 --> 00:07:46,338 And the reason for that is 128 00:07:46,338 --> 00:07:49,310 I recommend you err on the side of staying in stock. 129 00:07:50,702 --> 00:07:54,427 Also if you're, if you're thinking that, well, 130 00:07:55,141 --> 00:07:59,054 brick and mortar stores have opened back up, perhaps I'm not anticipating that 131 00:07:59,994 --> 00:08:04,020 I'm going to have quite as high of a year as I did during the pandemic era. 132 00:08:04,810 --> 00:08:06,540 I would encourage you to think again 133 00:08:06,540 --> 00:08:10,265 just about the overall growth that Amazon has year over year. 134 00:08:10,265 --> 00:08:13,425 So the e-commerce pie continues to grow, 135 00:08:14,591 --> 00:08:17,676 more SKUs every day, more shoppers online. 136 00:08:17,902 --> 00:08:20,949 And my guess personally is that many of these 137 00:08:21,964 --> 00:08:25,802 people who are shopping online who previous to the pandemic were not. 138 00:08:25,952 --> 00:08:27,006 I think they'll stick around. 139 00:08:27,006 --> 00:08:29,150 I think they've created their Amazon Prime accounts. 140 00:08:29,188 --> 00:08:33,664 I think they've learned how to use Prime or any other marketplace for that matter. 141 00:08:33,890 --> 00:08:37,088 I don't think they'll necessarily go back to brick and mortar. 142 00:08:37,088 --> 00:08:41,489 So that's why I would say based your predictions on 2021 and that's 143 00:08:41,978 --> 00:08:44,348 actually a really good consideration. Thanks for that, Brittni. 144 00:08:45,853 --> 00:08:46,869 Another thing I 145 00:08:46,869 --> 00:08:51,308 put in this slide is this idea that your top priority 146 00:08:51,609 --> 00:08:56,048 for Prime Day is you're thinking about this is not necessarily making sales. 147 00:08:56,048 --> 00:08:59,472 I mean, of course it's there, but your main goal 148 00:08:59,472 --> 00:09:02,406 that you're protecting yourself against is: I don't want to sell out. 149 00:09:02,858 --> 00:09:08,200 So focus on not selling out even ahead of how many sales you're making. 150 00:09:08,350 --> 00:09:12,338 So you need to order enough to meet demand using past data. 151 00:09:12,601 --> 00:09:16,025 And as I—as I mentioned earlier, and this is a theme throughout, 152 00:09:16,626 --> 00:09:19,373 too much is better than not enough 153 00:09:19,373 --> 00:09:23,887 If you overshoot your—your Prime Day expectations 154 00:09:24,038 --> 00:09:27,612 and you've ordered 10% more inventory than you really needed. 155 00:09:27,837 --> 00:09:28,402 Well, guess what? 156 00:09:28,402 --> 00:09:30,395 That inventory is still in Amazon. 157 00:09:30,395 --> 00:09:32,352 It's out there for sale. 158 00:09:32,352 --> 00:09:35,850 And I think you'll—you'll be fine just having that in FBA 159 00:09:35,926 --> 00:09:39,387 ready to go out for the increased demand that you see afterwards 160 00:09:42,472 --> 00:09:45,030 Another tip and this is—this is really where we're starting 161 00:09:45,030 --> 00:09:48,942 to get a little bit more into, let's say non 162 00:09:48,942 --> 00:09:52,328 commonsense stuff is 163 00:09:52,328 --> 00:09:54,435 keep your inventory close to replenishment. 164 00:09:54,435 --> 00:09:57,369 So what I mean by that is there's really for most sellers, 165 00:09:57,482 --> 00:10:01,394 three steps from the product being manufactured to the product 166 00:10:01,394 --> 00:10:05,382 being in their inventory available to sell on Amazon. 167 00:10:05,608 --> 00:10:08,128 So the manufacturer, if you're in private label 168 00:10:08,128 --> 00:10:10,122 or the distributor, if you're a wholesaler, 169 00:10:10,122 --> 00:10:13,132 this could be overseas, this could also be domestic. 170 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:14,561 But that's step one. 171 00:10:14,561 --> 00:10:20,468 And so the idea is try to keep inventory at step two which would be your warehouse 172 00:10:20,468 --> 00:10:23,854 it could be your garage or it could be a 3PL provider 173 00:10:23,854 --> 00:10:27,879 Or prep center you're using. Try and have the inventory 174 00:10:28,067 --> 00:10:30,512 that you are not landing at Amazon 175 00:10:31,152 --> 00:10:33,973 ready in step two so that it can quickly be replenished. 176 00:10:34,011 --> 00:10:37,209 So maybe you've done a good job projecting for Prime Day, 177 00:10:37,322 --> 00:10:40,707 but then afterwards you might need to send more inventory in 178 00:10:40,707 --> 00:10:43,529 and you want to eliminate the time between step one and step two. 179 00:10:43,717 --> 00:10:44,695 The best way to do that is 180 00:10:44,695 --> 00:10:48,457 have the inventory at step two, which then of course can easily 181 00:10:48,457 --> 00:10:52,445 be sent into what we're calling step three which is Amazon FBA. 182 00:10:54,514 --> 00:10:55,342 Another 183 00:10:55,342 --> 00:10:57,448 big trend I've seen with many of our clients 184 00:10:58,539 --> 00:11:01,286 is this idea of creating mirror FBM listings. 185 00:11:01,511 --> 00:11:05,650 So if you look at your, let's say, your top sellers and the inventory 186 00:11:05,913 --> 00:11:10,427 or I'm sorry, the ASINs that you're looking to sell the most units of also 187 00:11:10,465 --> 00:11:13,851 creating that ASIN and as an FBM listing, 188 00:11:14,528 --> 00:11:17,914 here's why you want to be able to turn that on in an emergency, 189 00:11:17,914 --> 00:11:20,622 which means if you run out of FBA inventory 190 00:11:21,300 --> 00:11:24,309 So the most common is while I undershot my goal for prime 191 00:11:24,309 --> 00:11:28,146 day, let's say, and lucky enough, you followed the advice 192 00:11:28,146 --> 00:11:31,532 you have inventory at the warehouse you can sell that 193 00:11:32,548 --> 00:11:35,068 —that inventory FBM if you've run out 194 00:11:35,445 --> 00:11:39,545 or the other scenario is when you run out after prime day, let's say 195 00:11:39,733 --> 00:11:43,721 you want to be able to have your FBM listings on. 196 00:11:43,721 --> 00:11:45,640 So you're continuing to make those sales 197 00:11:46,693 --> 00:11:47,483 while that 198 00:11:47,483 --> 00:11:51,508 inventory is in transit going to Amazon's fulfillment centers 199 00:11:51,508 --> 00:11:53,540 and then getting checked in at the fulfillment centers. 200 00:11:54,631 --> 00:11:56,738 That's a—that's a 201 00:11:56,738 --> 00:11:59,559 that's a big thing to think about. 202 00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,494 I wanted to share a client example, which is large 203 00:12:02,494 --> 00:12:05,315 electronics company that mainly sells brick and mortar for us. 204 00:12:06,444 --> 00:12:10,507 They were using a 3PL to send in prior to signing up with us, 205 00:12:10,808 --> 00:12:13,290 but it was taking them too long and they were trying to reduce 206 00:12:13,290 --> 00:12:17,767 some of the supply chain timelines they were incurred they were encountering. 207 00:12:17,767 --> 00:12:22,921 So by switching to MyFBAPrep and using a prep center, we were able to bring their 208 00:12:23,749 --> 00:12:26,345 —their replenishment time from 21 days 209 00:12:26,646 --> 00:12:29,091 or working with us, seven days with us. 210 00:12:29,467 --> 00:12:31,649 We actually can typically do it faster than that. 211 00:12:31,649 --> 00:12:34,132 But for this particular client there's a quality control step. 212 00:12:35,298 --> 00:12:38,195 So this 213 00:12:38,195 --> 00:12:41,731 is sort of the first tier of what you should be thinking about 214 00:12:42,070 --> 00:12:45,004 from an inventory replenishment standpoint ahead of Prime. 215 00:12:45,155 --> 00:12:48,277 And now I'll ask Brittni to share with you all what you should be thinking about 216 00:12:48,465 --> 00:12:51,324 from a marketing perspective in advance of Prime Day. 217 00:12:52,528 --> 00:12:53,995 Yeah, absolutely. 218 00:12:53,995 --> 00:12:58,058 So one of the big things about Prime Day is that 219 00:12:58,058 --> 00:13:01,331 Amazon is going to be obviously 220 00:13:02,347 --> 00:13:04,153 bringing a lot of people into Amazon. 221 00:13:04,153 --> 00:13:08,103 They're going to be advertising on their own just to bring people to Amazon. 222 00:13:08,141 --> 00:13:11,940 So this is our time as marketers to really capitalize 223 00:13:11,940 --> 00:13:15,251 on bringing more brand awareness to our partners. 224 00:13:15,251 --> 00:13:20,706 And this is a week ahead of time before Prime Day even starts. 225 00:13:20,706 --> 00:13:23,866 You want to be out there, you want to make your presence known. 226 00:13:24,242 --> 00:13:26,085 So in regards to the funnel, 227 00:13:26,085 --> 00:13:29,471 we are going to be focusing on awareness and consideration. 228 00:13:29,885 --> 00:13:32,556 People a week before Prime Day will start looking. 229 00:13:32,556 --> 00:13:36,544 They're aware of the prime day days, and now they're looking for products 230 00:13:36,581 --> 00:13:40,118 and that's when you want to really expand 231 00:13:40,118 --> 00:13:44,783 and try and focus on your top converting non-branded keywords 232 00:13:44,783 --> 00:13:50,350 and really start driving a full sponsored, product, sponsored brand, sponsored 233 00:13:50,350 --> 00:13:54,790 display strategy so that you are saturating these pages. 234 00:13:54,940 --> 00:13:59,266 So another thing is you want to make sure 235 00:13:59,266 --> 00:14:05,060 that you have enough inventory, which is what Taylor just talked about, 236 00:14:05,286 --> 00:14:09,725 but also detailing out your product pages, 237 00:14:09,725 --> 00:14:13,336 which is what I will be talking about on the next slide. 238 00:14:15,706 --> 00:14:16,271 The listing 239 00:14:16,271 --> 00:14:20,559 optimizations are going to be key for conversion. 240 00:14:20,597 --> 00:14:24,622 So we're introducing people through sponsored product, sponsored display, 241 00:14:24,622 --> 00:14:28,535 sponsored brand the week leading up to Prime Day. 242 00:14:28,610 --> 00:14:31,958 Now we want to make sure that our listing content is up to date 243 00:14:31,958 --> 00:14:35,645 at least one month before the season starts. 244 00:14:36,698 --> 00:14:41,326 Listing optimizations can be updating A plus content, 245 00:14:41,326 --> 00:14:44,561 your pictures, descriptions, keywords 246 00:14:44,561 --> 00:14:47,683 that you want to show for that are more broad. 247 00:14:48,285 --> 00:14:53,853 These are things that are going to be key for discoverability and viability. 248 00:14:53,966 --> 00:14:56,900 So we want to be able to be discoverable 249 00:14:57,088 --> 00:15:00,700 through our keywords, and that's how we use those in our campaigns. 250 00:15:01,264 --> 00:15:04,387 But we also want to improve our viability 251 00:15:04,387 --> 00:15:08,036 we want to put our best foot forward describing our products 252 00:15:08,374 --> 00:15:14,996 and what people can anticipate when they are shopping with your brand. 253 00:15:15,108 --> 00:15:19,849 So one of the best things to do is just have accurate descriptions, 254 00:15:19,849 --> 00:15:23,009 because nothing's worse than going through the whole sales process 255 00:15:23,009 --> 00:15:24,212 Somebody purchasing 256 00:15:24,212 --> 00:15:28,426 and they're not getting what they expected and then returns will follow. 257 00:15:28,426 --> 00:15:31,849 So set those clear expectations and that will help mitigate 258 00:15:31,849 --> 00:15:35,912 some of the returns and poor reviews as time goes along. 259 00:15:37,267 --> 00:15:38,696 I think that's great advice. 260 00:15:38,696 --> 00:15:41,819 Brittni all emphasized from the warehouse’s standpoint, 261 00:15:42,458 --> 00:15:44,941 working with sellers it's much easier 262 00:15:44,979 --> 00:15:48,064 to prevent returns than it is to process them. 263 00:15:48,252 --> 00:15:52,954 It's also very expensive to process them, which we'll touch on in the next section. 264 00:15:52,954 --> 00:15:57,017 But the accurate expectations are the first step to 265 00:15:57,017 --> 00:15:58,823 to avoid returns in the first place. 266 00:15:58,823 --> 00:16:00,817 And I think that's really solid advice. 267 00:16:01,569 --> 00:16:02,284 Absolutely. 268 00:16:02,284 --> 00:16:06,159 And most businesses have that is just something to mention as we lead up 269 00:16:06,159 --> 00:16:10,448 to Prime Day, because it does take a moment for those Amazon algorithms 270 00:16:10,448 --> 00:16:14,586 to really start to understand the product pages after edit. 271 00:16:14,586 --> 00:16:16,316 So keep that in mind. 272 00:16:16,316 --> 00:16:19,589 End of May should be the last-ditch effort 273 00:16:19,589 --> 00:16:21,658 to make any page optimizations 274 00:16:23,314 --> 00:16:27,264 but once we have people 275 00:16:27,452 --> 00:16:31,289 considered into our page and everything else, we want to focus on Amazon deals. 276 00:16:31,289 --> 00:16:35,164 So Amazon deals, particularly Deal of the Day. 277 00:16:35,691 --> 00:16:38,286 Those are going to be due by April 29th. 278 00:16:38,813 --> 00:16:41,183 This is always pretty far ahead of time 279 00:16:42,349 --> 00:16:43,929 and it's approved on the SKU level. 280 00:16:43,929 --> 00:16:46,488 So if you have multiple sellers of the same product 281 00:16:46,826 --> 00:16:49,836 some of the SKUs will be approved and others will not. 282 00:16:50,588 --> 00:16:53,259 In regards to eligibility requirements, 283 00:16:54,313 --> 00:16:58,150 Amazon is pretty strict about those and so this might not be an option 284 00:16:58,150 --> 00:17:01,611 for every brand, but we're going to talk about that as we go along. 285 00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:07,141 But some of the things that Amazon does look at is an established sales history. 286 00:17:07,216 --> 00:17:09,398 So if you're new to Amazon, 287 00:17:09,398 --> 00:17:12,107 chances are you're probably not going to get the deal of the day. 288 00:17:12,182 --> 00:17:14,214 But we'll talk about that later. 289 00:17:14,251 --> 00:17:17,675 You must have at least three star product ratings. 290 00:17:18,841 --> 00:17:22,114 It must be a new condition, Prime eligible for the U.S. 291 00:17:22,114 --> 00:17:24,935 and Puerto Rico, and compliant. 292 00:17:25,236 --> 00:17:28,095 That's a big thing to to be approved for these deals. 293 00:17:28,171 --> 00:17:33,287 Now, when we look at the chart here, the week of Prime Day in regards 294 00:17:33,287 --> 00:17:38,591 to deal of the day performance you typically see 150% increase. 295 00:17:39,005 --> 00:17:40,322 So that's really nice. 296 00:17:40,322 --> 00:17:46,116 Is that after a shot of a 68% increase the week after. 297 00:17:46,868 --> 00:17:52,285 And as marketers, I think there's going to be a longer aftershock after Prime Day. 298 00:17:52,285 --> 00:17:54,580 But I'm going to get to that a little bit later. 299 00:17:59,997 --> 00:18:01,690 And now we're on to coupons. 300 00:18:01,690 --> 00:18:04,813 So coupons are going to be due by June 10th. 301 00:18:05,227 --> 00:18:08,913 Again, we don't know the exact days of Prime Day yet, but 302 00:18:09,628 --> 00:18:12,939 it's either going to be ended June, the middle of July. 303 00:18:13,691 --> 00:18:19,296 But coupons are a great way to provide incentive to purchase your product. 304 00:18:19,786 --> 00:18:22,607 Now, it does have a higher conversion rate. 305 00:18:22,607 --> 00:18:25,090 Typically your competition will be running them. 306 00:18:25,654 --> 00:18:28,476 And one of the best things about coupons 307 00:18:28,476 --> 00:18:31,523 is that they are going to show in all of your advertisements 308 00:18:31,523 --> 00:18:35,736 which help your sponsored display, sponsored brands, sponsored product. 309 00:18:36,188 --> 00:18:41,078 That way, it's kind of a little bit of everywhere, but it does come with that. 310 00:18:41,078 --> 00:18:45,292 $0.60 per redemption price tag that's an Amazon fee. 311 00:18:45,405 --> 00:18:48,302 So keep that in mind when you're setting up those coupons. 312 00:18:49,167 --> 00:18:51,424 And in regards to coupons. 313 00:18:51,687 --> 00:18:53,644 What should you put the coupons on? 314 00:18:53,644 --> 00:18:56,616 Should you put it on your product line, your lowest 315 00:18:56,616 --> 00:18:59,588 selling ASINs or your top selling ASINs? 316 00:19:00,152 --> 00:19:03,237 And our recommendation is your best 317 00:19:03,237 --> 00:19:06,923 sellers are best sellers for a reason and people like what they like. 318 00:19:07,187 --> 00:19:12,040 However, I do think providing a coupon across all of your SKUs, and ASINs, 319 00:19:12,604 --> 00:19:16,855 is very important on Prime Day to have that product offering 320 00:19:16,855 --> 00:19:21,746 and that incentive that don't exclude your best sellers from coupons 321 00:19:21,746 --> 00:19:25,884 because people still want to purchase those and really do like those. 322 00:19:26,749 --> 00:19:31,076 Now, when it comes to percentage off versus dollar off, 323 00:19:31,452 --> 00:19:36,117 what should you choose? And in our experience, a dollar off amount 324 00:19:37,132 --> 00:19:38,524 when you get to higher 325 00:19:38,524 --> 00:19:42,286 values is ideal compared to percentage off. 326 00:19:42,512 --> 00:19:45,484 So for example, if your products $20 327 00:19:45,898 --> 00:19:51,315 and you're offering a 20% discount, I would recommend you go 328 00:19:51,315 --> 00:19:55,152 what the 20% discount rather than the $4 coupon. 329 00:19:55,529 --> 00:19:59,253 But if you put it on the reverse end, it's a $200 product, 330 00:19:59,253 --> 00:20:03,767 similar to what we have on the side here, and it's a $40 coupon. 331 00:20:04,294 --> 00:20:07,492 I think that's more of an incentive as well as we've done 332 00:20:07,492 --> 00:20:10,313 some testing with that and the dollar amounts 333 00:20:10,539 --> 00:20:13,850 to get a little bit higher tend to convert a little bit better. 334 00:20:15,166 --> 00:20:17,010 Other things that we've tested are 335 00:20:17,010 --> 00:20:20,508 limited versus unlimited redemptions, whether pricing 336 00:20:20,546 --> 00:20:24,308 only student prime discount and everything like that. 337 00:20:24,609 --> 00:20:25,625 Not really. 338 00:20:25,625 --> 00:20:29,048 Anything changes when you open up or limit 339 00:20:29,048 --> 00:20:32,020 your audience for these coupons and that eligibility 340 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,685 So I would say do what's best for your brand. 341 00:20:36,723 --> 00:20:39,243 I normally go with the unlimited redemptions. 342 00:20:39,243 --> 00:20:43,570 If I'm really trying to drive sales though, in keeping it open for everybody. 343 00:20:44,360 --> 00:20:47,256 Now, Prime exclusive discounts are great. 344 00:20:48,272 --> 00:20:50,078 They're very similar to coupons. 345 00:20:50,078 --> 00:20:53,576 However, they do have a little bit of a difference 346 00:20:53,576 --> 00:20:58,580 and they're more exclusive and they do come with more restrictions. 347 00:20:58,618 --> 00:21:03,546 So if we're talking about Prime exclusive discounts versus coupons, 348 00:21:03,546 --> 00:21:06,292 I would definitely go the coupon route 349 00:21:08,925 --> 00:21:11,672 And now, we're going to talk about ad structure. 350 00:21:11,709 --> 00:21:13,553 So we're still a week before prime day. 351 00:21:13,553 --> 00:21:15,246 What should we do? 352 00:21:15,246 --> 00:21:20,287 You should be increasing your daily budget by at least 50% to accommodate 353 00:21:20,362 --> 00:21:24,500 the overall awareness traffic and the consideration traffic. 354 00:21:25,027 --> 00:21:29,504 And you should have a full approach utilizing sponsored brand, 355 00:21:29,504 --> 00:21:33,830 sponsored product, and sponsored display. When it comes to sponsor product. 356 00:21:33,830 --> 00:21:37,592 I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but we should be increasing 357 00:21:37,592 --> 00:21:41,542 our top keywords by 25 to 35% for these bids 358 00:21:41,918 --> 00:21:45,417 because it's going to be more competitive, the prices are going to go up 359 00:21:45,417 --> 00:21:47,674 and we just have to stay competitive that way. 360 00:21:48,276 --> 00:21:53,167 My professional opinion would be to focus on non-branded keywords 361 00:21:53,167 --> 00:21:55,161 but also protect your space 362 00:21:55,161 --> 00:21:58,095 and bid up a little bit on those branded key terms as well. 363 00:21:58,095 --> 00:22:01,782 But non-branded is going to be that area 364 00:22:01,782 --> 00:22:04,453 where people are looking for 365 00:22:05,130 --> 00:22:09,795 utilizing keywords to find a product, but they're not sold to a brand yet. 366 00:22:09,795 --> 00:22:12,804 So we need to sell them our brand and that's 367 00:22:12,804 --> 00:22:15,438 where up bidding is going to be important. 368 00:22:16,228 --> 00:22:19,501 Now when we go into sponsored brand ads and sponsored 369 00:22:19,501 --> 00:22:23,601 brand video, you want to increase bids here too. 370 00:22:23,714 --> 00:22:25,859 I'm talking 25 to 35%. 371 00:22:26,272 --> 00:22:31,088 And again, you're, you're going to want to monopolize top of page, 372 00:22:31,088 --> 00:22:36,204 first page, as much as possible the week before, as well as on Prime Day. 373 00:22:36,242 --> 00:22:39,176 So those are really great ways to do that as well. 374 00:22:39,176 --> 00:22:43,239 Sponsored brand videos tend to convert about 25% better 375 00:22:43,991 --> 00:22:47,302 than traditional ads so if you have the ability 376 00:22:47,302 --> 00:22:50,199 to run sponsored brand video definitely do that 377 00:22:50,951 --> 00:22:54,901 and then sponsor display you are going to have access 378 00:22:54,901 --> 00:23:00,130 to all of these audiences with the updates that they gave back in September. 379 00:23:00,431 --> 00:23:04,570 And so we would recommend utilizing lifestyle and interest audiences 380 00:23:05,021 --> 00:23:08,407 to go after people who are looking in specific categories 381 00:23:08,407 --> 00:23:12,056 and who have historically purchased in that category. 382 00:23:12,094 --> 00:23:16,006 That way you're getting in front of shoppers again 383 00:23:16,420 --> 00:23:18,489 You have had history in that area. 384 00:23:18,715 --> 00:23:21,612 And now that we've prepped for Prime Day, 385 00:23:22,853 --> 00:23:24,922 Prime Day is here in our slideshow 386 00:23:25,675 --> 00:23:29,587 so how do you manage everything in Prime Day on those days? 387 00:23:30,791 --> 00:23:33,123 Yes, so Prime Day has arrived. 388 00:23:33,763 --> 00:23:37,487 I thought I thought I'd pause and talk a little bit about 389 00:23:38,616 --> 00:23:42,002 why is Prime Day such a big deal? 390 00:23:42,002 --> 00:23:44,409 The main reason is that there's increased 391 00:23:44,409 --> 00:23:47,908 traffic on the site, which is definitely going to lead to increased sales 392 00:23:48,209 --> 00:23:51,181 if you think of a mall around Christmas time. 393 00:23:52,347 --> 00:23:54,529 Every—every store 394 00:23:54,604 --> 00:23:57,990 whether it's Auntie Annie’s Pretzels or a traditional department store, 395 00:23:58,442 --> 00:24:01,752 benefits from there being more people at the mall during Q4. 396 00:24:01,752 --> 00:24:05,928 And the same is true on Prime Day. Amazon said a great job, 397 00:24:05,928 --> 00:24:09,201 a great job driving traffic to the platform 398 00:24:09,841 --> 00:24:14,618 so that as sellers, we all can sell more inventory and increase our sales. 399 00:24:15,860 --> 00:24:19,095 Another analogy I wanted to—to bring up 400 00:24:19,208 --> 00:24:25,039 is the prime day is sort of like a mini Q4 and what I've put in the first bullet 401 00:24:25,039 --> 00:24:27,936 point here is some advice from 402 00:24:28,274 --> 00:24:30,569 an Amazon educator named Jamie Davidson. 403 00:24:31,246 --> 00:24:33,842 He says about your Q4 goals 404 00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:37,378 he says the top three most important things for Q4 405 00:24:37,567 --> 00:24:40,839 and I'm now translating this to Prime Day, don't run out of inventory, 406 00:24:40,877 --> 00:24:42,909 don't run out of inventory, don't run out of inventory. 407 00:24:43,661 --> 00:24:47,874 I'm making that a theme of my contribution to this webinar, 408 00:24:48,702 --> 00:24:51,862 but that's really what you should be thinking about as Prime Day is here. 409 00:24:51,862 --> 00:24:54,007 You should be looking at your inventory saying Okay, great. 410 00:24:54,345 --> 00:24:55,775 Sales are going up. Sales are going up. 411 00:24:55,775 --> 00:24:57,392 How's my inventory doing? And it's kind of 412 00:24:58,634 --> 00:25:01,643 —it's kind of an interesting game to play because you want your sales to go up. 413 00:25:01,907 --> 00:25:05,029 If you're a sicko like me, you'll be refreshing 414 00:25:05,029 --> 00:25:07,362 the Amazon seller app over and over and over again. 415 00:25:08,641 --> 00:25:11,726 And then the flip side of it is, am I going to run out inventory? 416 00:25:11,726 --> 00:25:17,557 So there's—there's another thing to consider here. 417 00:25:17,557 --> 00:25:19,287 We're talking about supply. We're talking about demand. 418 00:25:19,287 --> 00:25:23,049 We're talking about inventory logistics, and then the marketing advertising side. 419 00:25:23,237 --> 00:25:27,075 I think it's interesting to think about if you run out of supply, 420 00:25:27,827 --> 00:25:30,159 the demand doesn't matter. 421 00:25:30,159 --> 00:25:34,749 If you run out of inventory, all of these important and interesting 422 00:25:34,749 --> 00:25:38,135 things Brittni is recommending we do to increase our sales 423 00:25:38,662 --> 00:25:41,746 don't matter because you can't make sales if you're out of inventory. 424 00:25:42,762 --> 00:25:43,627 So your 425 00:25:43,627 --> 00:25:48,781 focus will—will very quickly change back to the supply side or the inventory side 426 00:25:49,007 --> 00:25:52,506 as opposed to the marketing and the sales side. 427 00:25:52,543 --> 00:25:56,230 If you run out of inventory and so Brittni, maybe you could touch on 428 00:25:57,095 --> 00:25:59,315 a few other things 429 00:25:59,466 --> 00:26:01,459 behind the scenes or from a marketing perspective, 430 00:26:01,685 --> 00:26:05,259 Why is it so bad to run out of stock on your ASINs during Prime Day? 431 00:26:06,651 --> 00:26:09,134 Yeah, absolutely. 432 00:26:09,134 --> 00:26:11,241 As a marketer, nothing 433 00:26:12,031 --> 00:26:15,755 you know, you put in so much work with optimizing and keywords 434 00:26:15,755 --> 00:26:19,479 and trying to target the right competitors that once 435 00:26:19,479 --> 00:26:23,768 you are out of inventory, there's nothing for you to sell, your campaigns 436 00:26:23,768 --> 00:26:25,649 Stop working. 437 00:26:25,912 --> 00:26:28,508 I mean, they'll still be on, but nobody can purchase. 438 00:26:28,508 --> 00:26:30,878 So you're going to see your conversions go down 439 00:26:32,082 --> 00:26:33,625 and it's just kind of a mess. 440 00:26:33,625 --> 00:26:39,117 So, I mean, I enjoy pushing the envelope and if I can sell through 441 00:26:39,117 --> 00:26:42,428 all of the inventory even the 10% more 442 00:26:42,428 --> 00:26:45,625 that you send in, I'm happy to do that. 443 00:26:45,625 --> 00:26:49,801 And ultimately, I need to sell at the most efficient rate that I can. 444 00:26:49,801 --> 00:26:51,946 But it also brings down my efficiency. 445 00:26:52,284 --> 00:26:55,708 If even if you have variations and somebody goes on there 446 00:26:55,708 --> 00:26:58,604 and you only have one variation out of ten 447 00:26:58,604 --> 00:27:01,840 that's still in stock, that's only option that they have, 448 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:03,533 and they kind of feel like they're missing out. 449 00:27:03,533 --> 00:27:07,558 So definitely do not run out of inventory. 450 00:27:07,558 --> 00:27:10,868 Otherwise, all the building that you've done for your ad campaigns 451 00:27:10,868 --> 00:27:13,690 is just not going to really go anywhere. 452 00:27:13,916 --> 00:27:16,022 And that's not good for anybody. 453 00:27:16,925 --> 00:27:19,747 Yeah. Taking that conversion metric hit 454 00:27:20,838 --> 00:27:21,665 is not ideal. 455 00:27:21,665 --> 00:27:24,562 And also, if you're 456 00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,550 —if you're ASINs and stop selling, the BSR will 457 00:27:30,243 --> 00:27:32,951 increase, which is adversely favorable, right? 458 00:27:32,951 --> 00:27:37,503 You want the lowest BSR, meaning the number one product and you're 459 00:27:37,503 --> 00:27:42,206 missing out on that ranking juice. I'm I'm not a marketing guy like Brittni is. 460 00:27:42,206 --> 00:27:44,200 So I can use these non-technical terms. 461 00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:48,902 But again, your Amazon ranking juice is gone when you're out of stock. 462 00:27:48,902 --> 00:27:52,025 So don't want that to happen. 463 00:27:52,363 --> 00:27:54,470 So again, this idea of 464 00:27:54,470 --> 00:27:56,915 you got to manage the supply and the demand. 465 00:27:57,969 --> 00:28:01,054 Brittni is talking about things that will increase the demand, 466 00:28:01,054 --> 00:28:05,530 but all of that only matters when you have—have supply. 467 00:28:05,530 --> 00:28:09,970 So I'm going to ask her to touch on some of these demand initiatives 468 00:28:10,271 --> 00:28:12,377 like cost per click deals, coupons, 469 00:28:13,054 --> 00:28:14,258 Monitoring the competition, 470 00:28:15,650 --> 00:28:16,403 We'll see. 471 00:28:16,403 --> 00:28:19,525 We'll see what we can learn from what she's recommending we do. 472 00:28:20,466 --> 00:28:25,093 Yeah, I would definitely the week of Prime or before Prime Day. 473 00:28:25,394 --> 00:28:27,689 Take a look at what your competitors are doing. 474 00:28:27,689 --> 00:28:31,865 Know, where their strengths are and also in turn, 475 00:28:33,031 --> 00:28:35,890 defend your space, which I will get to in a little bit. 476 00:28:35,890 --> 00:28:38,937 But what your focus should be on Prime 477 00:28:38,937 --> 00:28:44,618 Day is top of page, first page, and you're going to want to increase 478 00:28:44,618 --> 00:28:49,772 your top performing keywords again by another 35 to 50%. 479 00:28:50,261 --> 00:28:54,399 You want to have them pretty high so that you're consistently there, 480 00:28:54,399 --> 00:28:58,086 but you want to make sure that you have enough money 481 00:28:58,086 --> 00:29:00,757 throughout the day to show for most of the day. 482 00:29:01,208 --> 00:29:04,744 So that's another thing is just making sure that you increase 483 00:29:04,744 --> 00:29:10,049 your daily budgets with what you feel is correct for your brand. 484 00:29:10,049 --> 00:29:14,037 Every product and every brand is different and you are going to know 485 00:29:14,037 --> 00:29:15,165 what is best for them. 486 00:29:15,165 --> 00:29:18,250 So look at the historical data, look at the competition 487 00:29:18,401 --> 00:29:22,915 and look at the SKU in the sales data and make your determinations there 488 00:29:22,915 --> 00:29:25,661 when you're adjusting some of these campaigns. So, 489 00:29:26,639 --> 00:29:27,881 for example, if you 490 00:29:27,881 --> 00:29:33,185 typically have a campaign that is $50 a day, you might consider increasing it 491 00:29:33,185 --> 00:29:37,700 to $100 or even $200 for the day. 492 00:29:38,076 --> 00:29:41,386 And especially with Prime Day typically being two days, 493 00:29:41,687 --> 00:29:45,148 you want to have enough budget that you are showing throughout the day. 494 00:29:45,148 --> 00:29:49,889 Your ads never go down and you stay competitive and you really capitalize on that. 495 00:29:50,603 --> 00:29:55,757 Another way of doing that is adding good multipliers for top of search 496 00:29:55,757 --> 00:30:01,175 for your sponsored product ads. You can go up by 25%. 497 00:30:01,175 --> 00:30:04,673 So for example, if you're bidding $1 for a keyword, 498 00:30:04,974 --> 00:30:09,301 you are telling Amazon, I am willing to bid up to $1.25 499 00:30:09,489 --> 00:30:12,611 in order to get top of page first page placement. 500 00:30:13,288 --> 00:30:16,110 I would even recommend going higher than that. 501 00:30:16,110 --> 00:30:18,442 If you see it fit for that product. 502 00:30:19,157 --> 00:30:20,323 If you think of that 503 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:21,941 you're 504 00:30:21,941 --> 00:30:25,176 going to be winning the more you are on the first page. 505 00:30:25,176 --> 00:30:29,615 Your product has great reviews competitive and price and has a really good 506 00:30:30,669 --> 00:30:32,399 product detail page. 507 00:30:32,399 --> 00:30:37,252 I would recommend even going higher than that 25. Morning of prime day. 508 00:30:37,252 --> 00:30:38,230 You still want to check in 509 00:30:38,230 --> 00:30:41,880 on those coupons and lightning deals, see how they're doing, what's going on, 510 00:30:42,293 --> 00:30:45,604 but also use the capabilities of sponsored display. 511 00:30:45,604 --> 00:30:47,372 I cannot emphasize this enough. 512 00:30:47,372 --> 00:30:50,796 Sponsor Display has been a huge game changer 513 00:30:51,134 --> 00:30:54,257 specifically for this past holiday season for us, 514 00:30:54,670 --> 00:30:59,937 but some of the ways we utilize sponsored bran— or sponsored display is going to be 515 00:31:00,201 --> 00:31:04,038 connecting with brand tailored shoppers through purchase or marketing. 516 00:31:04,527 --> 00:31:08,627 I would recommend this if your product is something that people buy often 517 00:31:09,530 --> 00:31:12,089 or multiples of, and then we re- 518 00:31:12,352 --> 00:31:14,985 targeting them based on their past purchases. 519 00:31:15,700 --> 00:31:18,033 If your product is more of a one and done, 520 00:31:18,597 --> 00:31:23,676 I would connect with them and in-market shoppers by using audience targeting. 521 00:31:23,676 --> 00:31:26,836 So looking at the audiences defining them out 522 00:31:26,873 --> 00:31:28,867 and then advertising that way. 523 00:31:29,620 --> 00:31:33,682 Another thing I would do is develop our defensive strategy 524 00:31:33,682 --> 00:31:36,730 with sponsored display and retarget your own product 525 00:31:36,730 --> 00:31:39,476 listing pages to try and defend your space. 526 00:31:40,266 --> 00:31:42,448 A lot of people are going to be competitive. 527 00:31:42,486 --> 00:31:44,367 It's kind of cutthroat a little bit. 528 00:31:44,367 --> 00:31:46,925 So you want to protect your space. 529 00:31:46,925 --> 00:31:47,978 And you'd be surprised 530 00:31:47,978 --> 00:31:52,568 how many new brand orders are generated from a defensive strategy 531 00:31:52,568 --> 00:31:57,646 and targeting your own product pages. Especially if you have a large account, 532 00:31:58,211 --> 00:32:02,612 retargeting it with different variations or other types of your product line. 533 00:32:02,650 --> 00:32:08,255 That I think is just showcases more of your brand and the products. 534 00:32:08,293 --> 00:32:12,130 And a lot of I've used this for quite some time 535 00:32:12,130 --> 00:32:15,366 and it's definitely converted very well at a very low cost. 536 00:32:15,366 --> 00:32:18,827 So there's a take away, be defensive, 537 00:32:18,827 --> 00:32:22,476 but also be offensive in your sponsored display strategy. 538 00:32:24,470 --> 00:32:25,184 All right. 539 00:32:25,184 --> 00:32:27,216 So now we're done with Prime Day. 540 00:32:27,667 --> 00:32:29,435 What—what do we do? 541 00:32:29,435 --> 00:32:30,526 We're over that hill. 542 00:32:30,526 --> 00:32:33,611 What happens now after Prime Day? 543 00:32:33,875 --> 00:32:36,508 You're probably going to see 544 00:32:36,508 --> 00:32:38,652 some returns and other things like that. 545 00:32:38,652 --> 00:32:40,684 But I'll let Taylor speak to that. 546 00:32:42,113 --> 00:32:44,521 But we're going to be running a poll real quick 547 00:32:45,161 --> 00:32:47,380 about this question. 548 00:32:47,644 --> 00:32:51,819 Do you tend to see a comparable amount of returns after Prime Day 549 00:32:52,008 --> 00:32:55,017 versus the holidays? 550 00:32:55,017 --> 00:32:57,011 We want to hear from you about this. 551 00:32:57,011 --> 00:33:01,826 In my personal opinion, on Prime Day, people are shopping for themselves 552 00:33:01,826 --> 00:33:05,588 and people in their immediate family in their household. 553 00:33:05,965 --> 00:33:10,103 So it's more of a I want, whereas during the holidays, it's a 554 00:33:10,140 --> 00:33:13,188 you want their shopping for everybody else. 555 00:33:14,805 --> 00:33:17,063 So I think that because it's 556 00:33:17,063 --> 00:33:19,884 more centered on what I want, 557 00:33:20,411 --> 00:33:23,195 I don't think there will be as many returns. 558 00:33:23,195 --> 00:33:25,565 But there will be returns. You can never avoid it. 559 00:33:25,978 --> 00:33:27,258 But we want to hear from you 560 00:33:35,496 --> 00:33:35,985 all right. 561 00:33:35,985 --> 00:33:39,446 It looks like we've got a fair number of responses to the poll 562 00:33:40,236 --> 00:33:43,660 so we'll keep moving forward in the presentation. 563 00:33:44,488 --> 00:33:46,745 And Brittni, 564 00:33:46,745 --> 00:33:49,867 do you know if we're going to if we're going to 565 00:33:49,867 --> 00:33:52,313 announce the results of the poll at the end of the presentation, 566 00:33:52,313 --> 00:33:55,435 or is it something we want to do now? 567 00:33:55,924 --> 00:33:57,956 That is a great question. 568 00:33:57,956 --> 00:34:02,432 I think we are. I can pop into answer that. 569 00:34:02,470 --> 00:34:04,915 We will cover that during the Q&A 570 00:34:06,458 --> 00:34:07,097 during the Q&A. 571 00:34:07,097 --> 00:34:07,662 Okay. 572 00:34:07,662 --> 00:34:12,439 Matthew is Kaspien's version of Alexa, and he's always there when you need him. 573 00:34:12,439 --> 00:34:14,659 Thanks for that, Matthew. 574 00:34:15,073 --> 00:34:17,217 I can attest to that. 575 00:34:17,217 --> 00:34:17,894 Yeah. 576 00:34:17,894 --> 00:34:20,415 So we're—we're in after Prime Day now. 577 00:34:20,979 --> 00:34:24,591 Unfortunately, this is the not fun part 578 00:34:24,591 --> 00:34:27,487 about post Prime or even post Q4 day. 579 00:34:28,353 --> 00:34:31,099 And this is factors to consider in a returns program. 580 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,936 Now, MyFBAPrep, we handle quite a bit of Amazon 581 00:34:34,936 --> 00:34:38,247 returns from our clients and I've just pulled together 582 00:34:38,435 --> 00:34:41,407 some things for you to think about because it's not fun. 583 00:34:41,407 --> 00:34:42,874 I'm going to go through it quickly 584 00:34:44,153 --> 00:34:44,793 but really 585 00:34:44,793 --> 00:34:47,501 you get into a little bit more mechanics behind 586 00:34:48,555 --> 00:34:50,285 things like FBA versus FBM. 587 00:34:50,285 --> 00:34:54,724 So in terms of returns, if you're curious, well, who covers shipping 588 00:34:55,439 --> 00:34:58,223 within the FBA program, the seller doesn't pay shipping. 589 00:34:58,223 --> 00:35:02,813 That's actually included in the fees, which roughly 590 00:35:02,813 --> 00:35:06,575 I think the stamp most sellers uses about 30% on FBA. 591 00:35:07,177 --> 00:35:11,164 If you're selling through merchant fulfillment or FBM or seller 592 00:35:11,164 --> 00:35:15,114 fulfilled prime, then you as the seller actually have to pay 593 00:35:15,302 --> 00:35:19,516 for the return shipping to your warehouse, wherever that may be. 594 00:35:20,381 --> 00:35:23,353 When a customer wants to return your product. 595 00:35:23,391 --> 00:35:26,852 So this is something it's good to know ahead of time, 596 00:35:26,852 --> 00:35:31,404 but we put it in the after section just because it has to do with returns 597 00:35:32,457 --> 00:35:35,881 and all of the Prime Day fun is over. So 598 00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,342 in terms of the customer service side. 599 00:35:39,342 --> 00:35:42,539 Yeah, just like shipping on for FBA 600 00:35:43,104 --> 00:35:47,016 Amazon typically is going to handle those the customer service questions. 601 00:35:47,242 --> 00:35:51,343 Whereas if you are selling Merchant Fulfilled or SFP, 602 00:35:51,982 --> 00:35:55,706 you will often get those customer complaints. 603 00:35:55,706 --> 00:35:59,544 Let's say the wrong variation, the wrong size, the wrong color of an item was sent. 604 00:36:00,296 --> 00:36:03,042 Those customers will email you as the seller directly. 605 00:36:04,773 --> 00:36:07,670 And then if you're thinking about, okay, well I don't want to lose 606 00:36:07,670 --> 00:36:12,447 all of the cost of that inventory, what do I do? 607 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,999 One recommendation I have is pay for returns 608 00:36:17,526 --> 00:36:21,363 at our company included in processing a returns 609 00:36:21,363 --> 00:36:25,088 unit comes this quality inspection, which is basically to say, 610 00:36:25,313 --> 00:36:29,038 can this go back in is brand new or does it need to be sold as used? 611 00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:30,656 Um probably 612 00:36:30,656 --> 00:36:34,229 not going to go too deep into this, but if you're thinking about a book, 613 00:36:34,418 --> 00:36:39,910 you have multiple conditions like acceptable, good, used, okay, 614 00:36:39,910 --> 00:36:45,591 Use like new, a brand new, for the majority of the inventory that we process 615 00:36:45,591 --> 00:36:50,782 in our warehouse is it either goes back in brand new or it goes in as used good. 616 00:36:51,459 --> 00:36:54,168 There's lots of good testing that—that 617 00:36:55,184 --> 00:36:55,673 is done 618 00:36:55,673 --> 00:36:59,548 to recommend well should use your product in this condition 619 00:36:59,548 --> 00:37:00,940 And how will it sell. 620 00:37:00,940 --> 00:37:04,025 But by and large, we want to we want to send stuff back into Amazon 621 00:37:04,025 --> 00:37:07,072 under those two categories 622 00:37:07,072 --> 00:37:09,404 For—for any non-book inventory, it's 623 00:37:09,404 --> 00:37:12,602 typically brand new has the cellophane 624 00:37:12,602 --> 00:37:15,687 wrap on it let's say or use like new 625 00:37:15,687 --> 00:37:17,681 if it's in like new condition. 626 00:37:20,916 --> 00:37:23,437 And then for return goods 627 00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,650 if it's FBM it's easy to process an exchange 628 00:37:27,650 --> 00:37:31,562 which is the second bullet point most customers, the behavior that Amazon 629 00:37:31,562 --> 00:37:36,190 has has taught with this customer centric focus is ask for a refund, 630 00:37:36,491 --> 00:37:38,522 You can just order the product new again. 631 00:37:38,522 --> 00:37:41,494 But if you are selling FBM or SFP, 632 00:37:41,645 --> 00:37:44,203 you can ask the customer, would you like to exchange the item? 633 00:37:44,504 --> 00:37:47,438 And then if you're selling on a platform that's not Amazon, 634 00:37:47,438 --> 00:37:51,802 maybe your own Shopify store you can actually give them a credit. 635 00:37:51,990 --> 00:37:55,940 Typically, this makes the most sense when you host a number of SKUs 636 00:37:55,940 --> 00:37:58,950 so that let's say you're selling 637 00:37:58,950 --> 00:38:01,395 beauty products, a customer who's bought 638 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,646 a shampoo from you might want to buy a topical lotion instead. 639 00:38:07,038 --> 00:38:07,414 That's the 640 00:38:07,414 --> 00:38:10,123 extent of my knowledge as far as the beauty category goes. 641 00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,014 So, Brittni, let's talk about marketing after Prime Day. 642 00:38:15,540 --> 00:38:17,083 Yeah, absolutely. 643 00:38:17,083 --> 00:38:20,393 So we call it the Turkey Five, 644 00:38:21,071 --> 00:38:25,359 sort of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving timeframe. 645 00:38:25,359 --> 00:38:29,121 But we think Prime Day is the pilot for Turkey Five 646 00:38:29,121 --> 00:38:30,739 and the holiday shopping season. 647 00:38:30,739 --> 00:38:34,764 So really taking all the data that you learned from Prime Day 648 00:38:34,764 --> 00:38:38,639 is going to be vital to helping build your campaigns. 649 00:38:38,752 --> 00:38:42,928 Or adjust your ad campaigns during the upcoming holiday season. 650 00:38:42,965 --> 00:38:46,765 Now, what are the echoes or aftershocks of Prime Day? 651 00:38:46,765 --> 00:38:50,188 You are going to see specifically what Deal of the Day. 652 00:38:50,188 --> 00:38:54,214 But everything else is an aftershock of about a week 653 00:38:54,214 --> 00:38:58,089 or two of increased sales before it'll really die down 654 00:38:58,691 --> 00:39:02,528 However, how marketers can really go after 655 00:39:02,528 --> 00:39:05,951 the audiences that are going to be developed over Prime Day, 656 00:39:06,704 --> 00:39:09,939 it's going to be with those sponsored display audience targeting ads 657 00:39:09,939 --> 00:39:14,754 so you can look back 30, 60, 90 or 120 days, 658 00:39:14,905 --> 00:39:18,215 which puts you in about September or October timeframe. 659 00:39:18,629 --> 00:39:23,445 We're retargeting shoppers who have interacted with your product 660 00:39:23,445 --> 00:39:25,965 or interacted with your competitor products, 661 00:39:25,965 --> 00:39:29,878 and we've just never had so much data specifically 662 00:39:29,878 --> 00:39:34,204 from Prime Day than we have right now with sponsored display ads. 663 00:39:34,242 --> 00:39:39,170 So we utilizing that information that you receive to go after shoppers 664 00:39:39,170 --> 00:39:42,744 time and time again, of course, if your product allows that, again, 665 00:39:42,744 --> 00:39:46,581 if it's a one and done product, that might be the best strategy. But 666 00:39:46,581 --> 00:39:51,584 if it's something you buy multiple times or multiple variations of, go for it. 667 00:39:52,788 --> 00:39:55,271 Also, remember to reduce your budgets in your bids, 668 00:39:56,024 --> 00:39:58,845 you don't want to be over spending on all of those. 669 00:39:58,845 --> 00:40:02,946 After that one week to two week timeframe, you're going to see your ACOS go 670 00:40:02,946 --> 00:40:04,977 really up that way. 671 00:40:04,977 --> 00:40:09,191 And then again, still some trickling from Prime Day will happen. 672 00:40:09,191 --> 00:40:13,141 So just take in as much data as possible. 673 00:40:13,141 --> 00:40:15,962 What ad types worked through your product? 674 00:40:15,962 --> 00:40:19,988 What didn't If there's different creative assets that you use 675 00:40:19,988 --> 00:40:23,599 for your sponsor display and sponsor brand, or brand video ads, 676 00:40:24,013 --> 00:40:28,527 really documenting what resonated with consumers what key words worked, 677 00:40:28,527 --> 00:40:31,988 and then keeping out of that, optimizing your campaigns 678 00:40:32,327 --> 00:40:34,848 and ultimately preparing for the Turkey Five, 679 00:40:35,713 --> 00:40:37,895 six months down the road. 680 00:40:44,704 --> 00:40:46,021 All right. 681 00:40:46,021 --> 00:40:48,316 That is our webinar for today. 682 00:40:49,256 --> 00:40:51,400 First, let me thank our speakers, Brittni 683 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,071 and Taylor have you covered a lot of ground there. 684 00:40:54,786 --> 00:40:58,699 And so thank you for taking the time and sharing your expertise with us. 685 00:40:59,376 --> 00:41:01,520 Now we're going to jump into the live Q&A 686 00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,169 so we do have some questions that came in during the webinar. 687 00:41:05,169 --> 00:41:06,561 I'll start with those. 688 00:41:06,561 --> 00:41:08,819 And if you have any questions, please go ahead. 689 00:41:08,819 --> 00:41:12,543 Throw those in chat and we'll hop into those as well. 690 00:41:13,371 --> 00:41:16,869 Before we do that, though, I'd like to share our poll results. 691 00:41:17,998 --> 00:41:19,051 Question was, do you 692 00:41:19,051 --> 00:41:22,399 tend to see comparable volumes of returns 693 00:41:23,114 --> 00:41:25,860 after Prime Day as you do to the holiday season? 694 00:41:26,462 --> 00:41:30,300 Have 54% say yes that they do see comparable returns 695 00:41:30,563 --> 00:41:34,175 with 46% say no they don’t, that there's a difference. 696 00:41:35,980 --> 00:41:39,554 My sneaking suspicion is that that might be related to product category 697 00:41:39,930 --> 00:41:42,902 that depending on the product type if it's a repeat purchase or not 698 00:41:45,197 --> 00:41:48,771 what type of I guess just that product category will have a factor. 699 00:41:48,771 --> 00:41:51,668 But I'm curious Taylor, Brittni if either of you have 700 00:41:51,668 --> 00:41:54,264 input on those results 701 00:41:54,903 --> 00:41:58,063 I'm along the same lines as you, Matthew, in regards to 702 00:41:58,327 --> 00:42:05,098 I think it all depends on the products and maybe in you know, in me talking about, oh, 703 00:42:05,512 --> 00:42:09,763 Prime Day is more so what I want versus what I'm getting everybody else. 704 00:42:10,139 --> 00:42:11,155 Maybe sometimes 705 00:42:11,155 --> 00:42:14,992 I backtrack on those purchases so I can understand it from that regard. 706 00:42:15,669 --> 00:42:16,610 Any thoughts, Taylor? 707 00:42:18,416 --> 00:42:21,425 No, it's—it's actually something that I want to take away 708 00:42:21,425 --> 00:42:27,068 and ask our clients at MyFBAPrep and see what see what they have to say. 709 00:42:27,896 --> 00:42:30,529 Matthew's idea about it being category specific 710 00:42:32,147 --> 00:42:33,577 tends to be where I would 711 00:42:33,577 --> 00:42:38,505 go as a hypothesis, but I don't—I don't have any forecasts 712 00:42:38,505 --> 00:42:41,514 or a crystal ball to say how accurate those results are. 713 00:42:41,514 --> 00:42:43,170 Interesting that it was split. 714 00:42:43,170 --> 00:42:43,696 Yeah. Yeah. 715 00:42:43,696 --> 00:42:46,443 I was not expecting it to be so 50/50 716 00:42:48,700 --> 00:42:49,377 split. 717 00:42:49,866 --> 00:42:50,393 Sorry. 718 00:42:50,393 --> 00:42:54,305 I said if there was a crystal ball It would be on Amazon for sure. 719 00:42:54,456 --> 00:42:57,917 So yeah, I'll be buying one. 720 00:42:59,384 --> 00:43:01,491 Let's dove into our questions here. 721 00:43:02,619 --> 00:43:04,688 This one I'll 722 00:43:05,065 --> 00:43:05,667 push to you. 723 00:43:05,667 --> 00:43:08,150 Taylor, on the logistics front, 724 00:43:08,150 --> 00:43:11,385 we're talking about ensuring we get inventory and you touch on how long 725 00:43:11,385 --> 00:43:15,373 before we should be prepping this material and sending it to FBA. 726 00:43:16,727 --> 00:43:19,887 I think this year is June 20th. 727 00:43:20,451 --> 00:43:23,348 I'd need to double check that, but I believe it's June 20th is the date 728 00:43:23,348 --> 00:43:29,593 that's been given that you need to have your inventory in for, for Prime Day. 729 00:43:29,593 --> 00:43:31,775 And Brittni touched on this briefly. 730 00:43:32,527 --> 00:43:33,919 I'll just reiterate it. 731 00:43:33,919 --> 00:43:35,951 We don't know when Prime Day is. 732 00:43:35,951 --> 00:43:39,337 I've seen between July 12th and July 20th. 733 00:43:39,337 --> 00:43:41,744 Typically it's two days. 734 00:43:41,744 --> 00:43:43,437 Prime day lasts for—for two days. 735 00:43:43,437 --> 00:43:46,560 And so it will very likely be within that time frame. 736 00:43:47,049 --> 00:43:49,644 Amazon hasn't let us know yet, but you can 737 00:43:50,660 --> 00:43:53,181 you can just search within the seller central platform. 738 00:43:53,181 --> 00:43:57,770 I believe it's June 20th is the last day they'll accept inventory 739 00:43:58,297 --> 00:44:01,006 for let's say your—your Deal of the Day or lightning deals 740 00:44:02,097 --> 00:44:05,746 and it's it's about a similar advance if you think of 741 00:44:05,784 --> 00:44:09,395 two for Amazon will remind you with an email as a seller saying 742 00:44:09,696 --> 00:44:13,684 hey if you want your goods to be sold and delivered before Christmas 743 00:44:13,909 --> 00:44:18,499 you must get them in by December 4th or etc. etc. 744 00:44:18,687 --> 00:44:22,035 They—they will let you know ahead of time if 745 00:44:23,728 --> 00:44:26,174 I have a question for you Brittni. 746 00:44:26,174 --> 00:44:30,199 It's does this apply to online arbitrage sellers? 747 00:44:30,199 --> 00:44:32,945 And I believe that they are referring to 748 00:44:35,278 --> 00:44:36,482 the risk of selling out 749 00:44:36,482 --> 00:44:39,378 and the impact that running out of stock has on ASINs. 750 00:44:39,717 --> 00:44:42,689 So does online arbitrage, 751 00:44:43,027 --> 00:44:46,714 the risk of running out of inventory affect rankings across the ranking 752 00:44:46,865 --> 00:44:50,740 or as you see across the listing, if there are multiple sellers in it? 753 00:44:52,056 --> 00:44:55,028 I, I do believe so. 754 00:44:55,028 --> 00:44:59,768 I just would not run out of inventory, especially with multiple sellers. 755 00:44:59,768 --> 00:45:02,515 I think it has a negative impact all the way through 756 00:45:03,380 --> 00:45:05,750 and I think I can add to that 757 00:45:06,916 --> 00:45:10,904 we don't take a lot of online arbitrage sellers, but we still have some. 758 00:45:11,957 --> 00:45:15,155 And actually this applies for booksellers as well. 759 00:45:16,058 --> 00:45:19,519 Booksellers are a great example for this because when you sell a book, you 760 00:45:19,519 --> 00:45:24,033 typically if if it's a used book, you're getting one of that title at a time. 761 00:45:24,071 --> 00:45:28,021 And so, well, what is Amazon do to me if I run out of stock? 762 00:45:28,021 --> 00:45:31,783 I never was even supposed to have, say, 20 of this title in stock. 763 00:45:32,498 --> 00:45:36,147 It does negatively affect your IPI score. 764 00:45:36,297 --> 00:45:40,285 A lot of booksellers cannot scale past a certain amount 765 00:45:40,285 --> 00:45:44,047 because the more inventory they have when it goes from one to zero, 766 00:45:44,612 --> 00:45:46,869 then will adversely affect their IPI score 767 00:45:46,869 --> 00:45:50,668 And now all of a sudden you can't send more books to F to FBA. 768 00:45:50,969 --> 00:45:52,963 That is why you see so many booksellers 769 00:45:54,543 --> 00:45:56,123 delivering FBM 770 00:45:56,123 --> 00:45:58,192 because at some point they just can't, 771 00:45:59,020 --> 00:46:02,255 They can't please the algorithm, which is very funny 772 00:46:02,255 --> 00:46:08,275 because anyone who knows Amazon well knows that Jeff Bezos called Books his first 773 00:46:08,275 --> 00:46:11,961 best product to sell where he wanted to go long tail on millions of books. 774 00:46:12,262 --> 00:46:15,460 That's really what Amazon was built on originally, 775 00:46:15,648 --> 00:46:20,351 and now they sort of ding, if you will, Amazon sellers for selling books. 776 00:46:20,652 --> 00:46:23,548 That's a whole other topic for an online arbitrage seller. 777 00:46:23,774 --> 00:46:27,536 Here's what you do. When you go to zero on a unit. 778 00:46:27,875 --> 00:46:30,546 You delete that ASIN from your inventory. 779 00:46:30,734 --> 00:46:32,765 And now when the algorithm runs it's 780 00:46:32,765 --> 00:46:37,129 not showing that you have zero units for that particular ASIN. 781 00:46:37,129 --> 00:46:39,349 And so that's what I've heard people do. 782 00:46:39,349 --> 00:46:44,465 I'm not super familiar with OA myself, but I've heard that's—that's how 783 00:46:44,465 --> 00:46:48,039 you make sure that your IPI score stays high when you do run out of inventory. 784 00:46:50,522 --> 00:46:51,237 You touched on 785 00:46:51,237 --> 00:46:54,773 FBM and we actually have a question relates that's my segue right into it. 786 00:46:55,450 --> 00:47:00,491 Question is we currently only sell FBM and plan to sell FBA this month. 787 00:47:00,717 --> 00:47:04,178 Does our sales history count towards getting Amazon 788 00:47:04,178 --> 00:47:05,796 Deal of the day? 789 00:47:07,451 --> 00:47:10,235 So I guess are their 790 00:47:10,235 --> 00:47:13,395 performance metrics that they're getting as an FBM seller, 791 00:47:13,395 --> 00:47:17,157 is that supporting their bargaining position 792 00:47:17,157 --> 00:47:21,107 or their eligibility for deals 793 00:47:21,822 --> 00:47:23,891 I can't speak to this one with certainty. 794 00:47:24,305 --> 00:47:26,035 Brittni, do you know? 795 00:47:26,524 --> 00:47:28,782 I would say 796 00:47:30,098 --> 00:47:32,920 I that one's kind of difficult. 797 00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:39,165 I feel like with Prime Deal of the Day, Prime Day exclusives, 798 00:47:39,165 --> 00:47:43,152 and things like that, that they do focus a lot on Prime. 799 00:47:43,867 --> 00:47:48,194 So that is a good question I would really like to follow up on. 800 00:47:48,607 --> 00:47:50,564 So I don't give any misinformation. 801 00:47:51,617 --> 00:47:51,956 Yeah. 802 00:47:51,956 --> 00:47:56,921 And I do have a list of deal requirements in front of me. Two stand out to me 803 00:47:57,335 --> 00:48:00,270 that might influence this is one that is prime eligible. 804 00:48:00,947 --> 00:48:05,010 So if you're going into FBA and now you are getting Prime eligibility 805 00:48:05,010 --> 00:48:08,508 through that, you would be checking that box that you may not have been 806 00:48:08,508 --> 00:48:12,496 checking before via FBM unless you had seller filled prime 807 00:48:14,528 --> 00:48:17,424 Otherwise, I'm not seeing any requirements 808 00:48:17,424 --> 00:48:20,171 that have a sales history three-star product rating. 809 00:48:20,472 --> 00:48:23,481 It's not a restricted offensive or inappropriate product, 810 00:48:23,481 --> 00:48:24,911 It's new. 811 00:48:25,927 --> 00:48:30,140 If you're checking all the boxes, I, I think that getting Prime 812 00:48:30,140 --> 00:48:33,977 would be the biggest one that you're missing in the FBM model. 813 00:48:38,003 --> 00:48:39,432 Bit of a stumper there, I like that. 814 00:48:39,432 --> 00:48:41,990 Yeah, yeah. That's a very good question. Love it. 815 00:48:42,968 --> 00:48:46,091 We have a couple of questions about Prime exclusive discounts 816 00:48:46,091 --> 00:48:48,235 I'm going to run by you Brittni. 817 00:48:49,176 --> 00:48:51,997 The first is asking, 818 00:48:51,997 --> 00:48:54,330 or saying, we've heard 819 00:48:54,330 --> 00:48:56,775 that during Prime Day Amazon give SERP, 820 00:48:57,302 --> 00:48:59,672 search result placement, preference 821 00:49:00,311 --> 00:49:03,359 to products that have a Prime exclusive discount 822 00:49:04,750 --> 00:49:08,324 do you have any confirmation, if that's true? Might be a reason to favor 823 00:49:08,324 --> 00:49:12,162 Prime exclusive over coupons? 824 00:49:13,478 --> 00:49:15,134 That is a very good question. 825 00:49:15,134 --> 00:49:18,482 So when it comes to that. 826 00:49:19,385 --> 00:49:20,965 Could you repeat that one more time? 827 00:49:20,965 --> 00:49:22,357 There was a little bit of. 828 00:49:22,357 --> 00:49:24,501 Yeah, yeah, it's—it's a longer question. 829 00:49:25,705 --> 00:49:29,730 The claim is that Amazon favors on the search results 830 00:49:29,730 --> 00:49:34,395 page prime exclusive discounts over other offers. 831 00:49:34,884 --> 00:49:36,126 Is that true? 832 00:49:36,464 --> 00:49:37,969 I would think so. 833 00:49:37,969 --> 00:49:43,725 Prime and Amazon like to promote what they think is of a good value. 834 00:49:43,725 --> 00:49:46,434 So if they are giving those prime exclusive discounts, 835 00:49:46,885 --> 00:49:50,346 I would see them pushing those more—more than coupons. 836 00:49:50,647 --> 00:49:55,124 However, I think coupons do edge themselves 837 00:49:55,124 --> 00:49:59,789 in the way of showing on ads as well as organic listings 838 00:50:01,030 --> 00:50:01,745 that helps. 839 00:50:01,745 --> 00:50:05,319 So if you are not eligible for those prime exclusive discounts, 840 00:50:05,996 --> 00:50:09,495 I would consider a good way to go with that. 841 00:50:10,247 --> 00:50:12,504 So, yes, I would concur. 842 00:50:12,504 --> 00:50:14,649 I've also heard this is not part of the question. 843 00:50:14,649 --> 00:50:19,389 This is me adding that I heard that Prime exclusive discounts 844 00:50:19,389 --> 00:50:24,129 are something of a headache to create in Seller Central 845 00:50:24,994 --> 00:50:28,117 compared to coupons, it requires exporting to spreadsheets, 846 00:50:28,117 --> 00:50:32,067 filling it out re-uploading that has that process changed it 847 00:50:32,067 --> 00:50:34,249 all, or is it does it remain as cumbersome? 848 00:50:35,114 --> 00:50:38,199 I believe it remains as cumbersome. 849 00:50:38,650 --> 00:50:42,788 You can bulk upload coupons as well, but it's not required. 850 00:50:44,068 --> 00:50:45,535 But you yeah, it is. 851 00:50:45,535 --> 00:50:48,130 It is rather cumbersome. 852 00:50:48,130 --> 00:50:48,732 Okay. 853 00:50:49,372 --> 00:50:51,742 Second question is a bit broader. 854 00:50:51,742 --> 00:50:55,655 And what are the advantages of activating a prime exclusive discount? 855 00:50:55,655 --> 00:50:56,557 So we've just heard that 856 00:50:57,987 --> 00:50:58,890 favored or 857 00:50:58,890 --> 00:51:01,598 preferences on the search results page might be one of those. 858 00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,570 Are there any other standout benefits 859 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,580 or advantages to those? 860 00:51:08,295 --> 00:51:11,154 Yeah, I feel as though 861 00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,201 they do give sort of a spotlight. 862 00:51:14,201 --> 00:51:18,716 I would like to point out that Prime exclusive deals typically have 863 00:51:18,716 --> 00:51:22,553 a discounted price as well as they are 864 00:51:22,553 --> 00:51:25,299 discounted up to 120 minutes, 865 00:51:25,788 --> 00:51:28,572 I believe is what I have written down here 866 00:51:31,205 --> 00:51:33,839 so it does take a little bit to go live 867 00:51:36,058 --> 00:51:39,407 I do think that there are benefits to it because it does have the Prime 868 00:51:39,407 --> 00:51:42,341 exclusive name associated with it 869 00:51:43,507 --> 00:51:45,539 and they are also showcased 870 00:51:45,689 --> 00:51:49,827 but I do not think you have as much control over them. 871 00:51:50,016 --> 00:51:52,687 If I'm speaking to that correctly, 872 00:51:54,304 --> 00:51:56,750 prime exclusive deals 873 00:51:57,502 --> 00:51:57,991 yeah. 874 00:52:00,060 --> 00:52:01,452 Might be one that we follow up with. 875 00:52:01,452 --> 00:52:05,816 I think we have a blog on kaspien.com about Prime exclusive discounts. 876 00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:06,568 Right. 877 00:52:07,208 --> 00:52:09,691 If so, we can send that alongside the recording. 878 00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:13,791 Question for you, Taylor. 879 00:52:13,791 --> 00:52:16,011 It's a pretty specific scenario. 880 00:52:16,011 --> 00:52:21,729 We are launching two new products that do not have historical sales dat. As such, 881 00:52:21,729 --> 00:52:23,347 They were conservative on their first order 882 00:52:23,347 --> 00:52:26,770 and we're considering prime day when they made that that order. 883 00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,307 Do you recommend that they try to cash in on Prime Day 884 00:52:30,307 --> 00:52:33,241 or skip this year to avoid the risk of stocking out? 885 00:52:33,542 --> 00:52:36,740 Is that risk on Prime Day sales worth the risk of stock out 886 00:52:38,132 --> 00:52:41,593 up yeah, it's a—it's a tough question. 887 00:52:41,856 --> 00:52:45,881 I think there is a there is a middle ground that I might recommend here, 888 00:52:45,881 --> 00:52:47,198 which is 889 00:52:47,650 --> 00:52:50,396 not I'm assuming it's a private label seller. 890 00:52:50,659 --> 00:52:55,625 And if they're worried about inventory and not being able to purchase 891 00:52:55,625 --> 00:52:59,124 and let's say get it from overseas into FBA in time 892 00:52:59,500 --> 00:53:02,660 to have a big stockpile for Prime Day, 893 00:53:02,886 --> 00:53:07,137 then the middle ground is to just not go too heavy 894 00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:11,275 on let's say the CPC increases that Brittni was recommending 895 00:53:12,404 --> 00:53:13,118 where she put 896 00:53:13,118 --> 00:53:17,746 in her slide 100 to 200% higher than normal, you would keep your budgets 897 00:53:18,009 --> 00:53:20,943 where they typically are, see if that will actually 898 00:53:22,147 --> 00:53:25,006 allow you just to have those—those ads served 899 00:53:26,285 --> 00:53:29,295 and then and then you'll very very much 900 00:53:29,558 --> 00:53:34,110 have a lift in sales whether you're kind of paying for it or not. 901 00:53:34,110 --> 00:53:37,270 So if—if inventory is low 902 00:53:37,270 --> 00:53:41,258 what I recommend you do is just not then go and promote too much 903 00:53:41,258 --> 00:53:44,230 and just the increased traffic will increase your sales 904 00:53:44,569 --> 00:53:47,503 and I'm assuming with, with the seller that they're saying 905 00:53:47,503 --> 00:53:52,431 they don't have time to reorder and get it into Amazon before Prime Day. 906 00:53:53,184 --> 00:53:57,510 Otherwise, order more and follow the playbook 907 00:53:57,510 --> 00:54:01,949 of of the different initiatives you can do to to increase your sales. 908 00:54:01,949 --> 00:54:02,288 There 909 00:54:04,884 --> 00:54:06,953 Got it, good answers. 910 00:54:07,254 --> 00:54:10,414 And we have two more questions for our last 6 minutes here. 911 00:54:11,467 --> 00:54:13,536 One is about post Prime Day 912 00:54:13,950 --> 00:54:17,863 we talked about the aftershock of Prime. 913 00:54:17,863 --> 00:54:21,625 Day having residual sales lift but we also talked about reducing your bit 914 00:54:22,001 --> 00:54:24,860 should you how much should you be reducing your bids 915 00:54:24,860 --> 00:54:26,064 and when 916 00:54:28,058 --> 00:54:30,465 I think they're kind of getting at 917 00:54:30,465 --> 00:54:33,851 should you reduce it to pre Prime Day bid levels immediately 918 00:54:33,851 --> 00:54:37,801 thereafter or should you keep them slightly elevated in the week 919 00:54:37,801 --> 00:54:39,795 or two weeks immediately following prime day? 920 00:54:40,660 --> 00:54:40,961 Yeah. 921 00:54:40,961 --> 00:54:44,498 So how we talked about that was a week before Prime Day. 922 00:54:44,498 --> 00:54:48,636 We raise those 25 to 35% and then on Prime Day 923 00:54:48,636 --> 00:54:53,451 increasing again, another I believe is 35 to 50%. 924 00:54:53,903 --> 00:54:58,868 You're going to want to reduce them that 35 to 50% leading out of that week. 925 00:54:59,019 --> 00:55:04,737 And then I think about ten days after that reduce them to pre prime day normals, 926 00:55:06,016 --> 00:55:09,590 some more of that bell curve sort of a way. 927 00:55:10,117 --> 00:55:12,713 Can I ask a follow up question here Brittni 928 00:55:12,713 --> 00:55:14,631 when you talking about raising the bid. 929 00:55:14,631 --> 00:55:17,829 I think the example you gave was from a dollar to $1.25. 930 00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:21,967 How does Kaspien think about profitability 931 00:55:24,112 --> 00:55:26,971 as as you're looking at increasing ad spend, so 932 00:55:28,137 --> 00:55:30,657 are you like just I'm 933 00:55:30,657 --> 00:55:35,134 sure there's many different solutions here, but do you guys say, well, 934 00:55:35,134 --> 00:55:38,934 we'll increase it up to break even, but we don't want to lose money on our sales? 935 00:55:38,934 --> 00:55:41,417 Just what's the thought process behind that? 936 00:55:42,282 --> 00:55:45,743 The thought process is ultimately to stay competitive. 937 00:55:46,270 --> 00:55:49,204 I—we're assuming that most competitors 938 00:55:49,467 --> 00:55:52,853 are increasing their bids by at least 50%, if not more. 939 00:55:53,079 --> 00:55:56,201 This is very common throughout the holiday season as well. 940 00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,587 If you look at any historical metrics, you're going to see 941 00:55:59,587 --> 00:56:02,860 at least a 30% increase on CPC bids. 942 00:56:02,935 --> 00:56:07,901 Or averages, if you will, if you're on the seller central console. 943 00:56:08,353 --> 00:56:12,152 So our mindset is to stay competitive, increase 944 00:56:13,319 --> 00:56:15,613 the daily budgets to show more. 945 00:56:16,065 --> 00:56:20,918 But we are banking on the fact that more people are going to be on Amazon 946 00:56:20,918 --> 00:56:25,395 and have eyeballs on Amazon than normal regular days. 947 00:56:25,395 --> 00:56:27,276 So we need to stay competitive. 948 00:56:27,276 --> 00:56:33,822 We need to outbid our customers and the $1 to $1.25 stop process 949 00:56:34,010 --> 00:56:38,750 with actually the placement up bids for top of page first page placement. 950 00:56:39,465 --> 00:56:43,151 I utilized that in my day to day for some campaigns 951 00:56:43,377 --> 00:56:47,252 because I do think that the product that I'm advertising 952 00:56:47,252 --> 00:56:51,240 will be clicked on more if they're on the first page 953 00:56:51,240 --> 00:56:54,701 and that they're comparable to their competitors or better. 954 00:56:55,754 --> 00:56:58,688 So that's the strategy I have on my own, 955 00:56:58,839 --> 00:57:01,510 but it's important on Prime Day to increase that. 956 00:57:01,510 --> 00:57:06,702 But ultimately take that down if you haven't already built that in and put 957 00:57:07,793 --> 00:57:09,485 things on. 958 00:57:09,485 --> 00:57:11,366 That question sparked a couple more. 959 00:57:11,366 --> 00:57:14,000 We'll see if we can get all of them in. 960 00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,859 First, what is a quote unquote 961 00:57:16,859 --> 00:57:19,906 good ROAS, that stands for Return on ad 962 00:57:19,906 --> 00:57:22,690 Spend, to target for sponsored ads 963 00:57:23,179 --> 00:57:26,264 during pre Prime Day and then Prime Day itself. 964 00:57:26,603 --> 00:57:29,988 Imagine the answer's going to be along the lines of it depends. 965 00:57:30,365 --> 00:57:32,772 Yes it does depend. 966 00:57:32,772 --> 00:57:35,669 I would say that 967 00:57:36,233 --> 00:57:39,657 if it comes down to the product, if you have a higher 968 00:57:39,657 --> 00:57:44,961 priced product over $100 that you're going to see your ROAS 969 00:57:44,961 --> 00:57:49,400 definitely go down in cost is going to go up in inverse 970 00:57:50,078 --> 00:57:53,952 and that's simply because people are interacting and they're pricing out. 971 00:57:53,952 --> 00:57:58,730 So you're definitely going to see that what is typical for that brand 972 00:57:58,768 --> 00:58:01,777 is it depends, but 973 00:58:01,777 --> 00:58:04,674 I would see it definitely decrease 974 00:58:05,464 --> 00:58:08,436 in overall value with people pricing it out. 975 00:58:08,474 --> 00:58:12,988 Now, this is really big for the tech industries and technical type products. 976 00:58:15,208 --> 00:58:16,374 But anything and 977 00:58:16,374 --> 00:58:19,685 everything is fair game on Amazon when it comes to Prime Day. 978 00:58:19,685 --> 00:58:25,027 So I would anticipate quite a bit of—quite a bit of an uptick. 979 00:58:25,027 --> 00:58:30,369 I've seen an improvement in costs from like 20% down to 10% 980 00:58:30,820 --> 00:58:34,770 for higher priced items. For lower priced items 981 00:58:34,770 --> 00:58:40,639 I've seen it run the gambit as well, go from 30% down to 20. 982 00:58:40,677 --> 00:58:45,191 So it depends on the historical data of your products. 983 00:58:45,191 --> 00:58:50,232 What I would recommend is implementing sponsored display 984 00:58:50,420 --> 00:58:52,978 and a defensive strategy that will help 985 00:58:53,505 --> 00:58:56,740 keep your ACOS low or ROAS high 986 00:58:58,057 --> 00:59:01,894 and help protect your space, but also help with the conversion 987 00:59:01,894 --> 00:59:07,123 process on Prime Day. So expect to hit the week leading up. 988 00:59:07,123 --> 00:59:09,644 That is very normal 989 00:59:09,644 --> 00:59:14,572 for prime day and afterwards you should see that uptick in this sales volume increase. 990 00:59:16,303 --> 00:59:17,281 Excellent. 991 00:59:17,958 --> 00:59:18,710 Well, I think we're 992 00:59:18,710 --> 00:59:22,510 going to have to call it there as we're hitting our time again. 993 00:59:22,661 --> 00:59:27,175 Taylor, Brittni, thank you so much for taking the time today to speak with us 994 00:59:27,175 --> 00:59:30,373 and share all your expertise to our audience. 995 00:59:30,373 --> 00:59:31,840 Thank you for sticking around with us. 996 00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:36,806 It's past hour. Whope it was valuable as I mentioned, we will be seeing now 997 00:59:36,806 --> 00:59:39,665 a recording of this webinar, likely tomorrow. 998 00:59:40,718 --> 00:59:42,825 And so if you missed anything you want to revisit anything, 999 00:59:42,825 --> 00:59:45,120 just keep an eye out for that. 1000 00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:46,662 All right. Thank you, everyone.