Dominating with Differentiation - Danielle Vincent - Amazon Legends - Episode #107

There are lots of new businesses which start selling on Amazon every day and the quest to stand out among them gets more and more challenging. Luckily, Danielle Vincent, an eight-year veteran of selling on Amazon is here to pass on some pearls of wisdom. You will learn about differentiating your products, whether PPC campaigns are more important than optimizing your listings, and planning for peak selling periods. Danielle also passes along tips on launching new products that can only be learned the hard way. 

 

Takeaways: 

• Amazon is becoming a more accessible channel for a growing number of businesses, so competition is increasing which makes differentiating your product even more important. Differentiating helps your product compete with the cheaper competitors Amazon promotes around it. 
• It is important to realize that selling on Amazon is not a strategy on its own. To be successful, Amazon has to be one channel within a bigger picture strategy.
• When buying your products from wholesalers, it is imperative to have them sign an agreement not to also sell those same products on Amazon. Do whatever you can to control who can sell against you on Amazon. 
• When using FBA, you must consider the packaging materials and shipping requirements of FBA. There are some things that you won’t have control over in FBA warehouses such as temperature, so make sure your packaging is up to the task.
• If there is a problem with your product, you must recall it immediately. Although this will be hard and costly, it is the best move to make and can save you from a lot of bad reviews. When launching new products, only send 10-20 units at first so if there is an issue or a bad review among the first five reviews, it is easier to recall the inventory. 
• When planning for an upcoming peak selling period, take the cut-off shipping date that Amazon gives you with a very large grain of salt. Make a practice of shipping 2 months ahead of that date and not sending the entire order in one shipment, as it could get lost.

Quote of the Show:

• “We're not interested in being trends, we’re an evergreen brand with the evergreen scent profile that we have” - Danielle Vincent

Links:

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danielleavincent
• Company Twitter: @OutlawSoaps
• Company website: LiveOutlaw.com  
• Personal website: danielleavincent.com
• Book: you-nicorn.com

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/092e0e83-44d8-42a3-9efd-f57daad2bbff/amazon-legends-podcast
• Audible: ​​https://www.audible.com/pd/Podcast/B08JJQKM6V
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/amazon-legends-podcast/id1589750284
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/01NnJ5SHgUFTBDr77HtExu?si=7850ec72879e401e
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/E2Bgk2UrFNM