October 15, 2024 • 41 mins
How do you solve a months-long problem in minutes? Join us as we navigate the Amazon Accelerate conference, where Amazon sellers like you seek immediate solutions to longstanding account issues, all while grappling with the realities of Amazon's priorities. You'll discover how the expanding Seller Cafe has become a beacon for frustrated sellers desperate for effective support and how face-to-face interactions with Amazon's experts can be a game-changer. We highlight the tension between seller needs and Amazon's focus on customer and shareholder satisfaction, inviting you to think about where your business fits into Amazon's grand plan.
Imagine a world where Amazon takes the reins on every aspect of your supply chain. We unpack Amazon's latest strides in fulfillment and logistics, including Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) and Amazon Global Logistics (AGL). These initiatives promise to redefine efficiency and cost-effectiveness for sellers, yet they also raise important questions about Amazon's growing control over your business operations. From improving shipping times with Multi-channel Fulfillment (MCF) to the strategic impact of custom labeling, you'll get an inside look at how these changes might just transform your logistics strategy.
What if drone deliveries became the norm, and TikTok ads gave your products a Prime advantage? We explore Amazon's futuristic ventures, such as their ambitious drone delivery plans and unexpected partnerships with platforms like TikTok. The integration of "Buy with Prime" in diverse spaces hints at a revolutionary shift in e-commerce and advertising. Dive into the potential implications if Amazon were to acquire TikTok and the exciting AI innovations emerging from Amazon Accelerate. This episode is your passport to understanding Amazon's evolving landscape and the innovative tools set to redefine the future of e-commerce.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
Another Tactics Tuesday.
We are live on LinkedIn, soanybody has any questions, feel
free to put them in the chat.
We'd love to tackle them there.
And today we're really excitedto talk about Amazon Accelerate.
So the show just wrapped up acouple of weeks ago.
This is Amazon's biggest showfor sellers, where they talk
about kind of all the new thingsthat they're launching and
(00:20):
what's changing on the platform.
Matt went to the show, so I'mgoing to pass it over to Matt
and tell us about some of thethings at Accelerate that really
perched your ears up and youthink that listeners need to be
aware of.
So first off, to preface, allof this.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Most Amazon conferences I have been to as a
service provider, whether it belike behind a booth or going
there just as kind of a suitcasebrand trying to just drum up
business, talking to sellers andother service providers.
Amazon Accelerate is the onlyconference that I've gone to and
this is the second time thatI've gone to as an actual seller
, which I identify more as aseller than I do a service
(00:58):
provider anyways.
But you know, over there wassome.
There was about three majorthemes at this conference, but
what I will say that is veryspecific to Amazon Accelerate
and I heard several stories thatcorroborated this both this
year and last year that reallythe biggest benefit, in my
opinion, of Amazon Accelerate inaddition to all of the updates
(01:22):
that Amazon tells you about andthen the networking is being
able to sit face-to-face with aseller support specialist.
Basically, I think they callthem subject matter experts.
Not only are they Englishspeaking, not only do they know
what the heck is going on withthe Amazon platform, but they
have their laptop and they canactually fix things for you, and
(01:44):
I've heard stories of brandsthat had been dealing with
problems for six to eight monthsand it took a five minute
conversation with one of thesesubject matter experts that
resolved their issue within aspan of a couple of minutes.
I talked to a brand owner thatflew to Seattle from the UK His
account.
He was a eight figure seller andhis account was shut down and
(02:07):
it had probably three monthsearlier than that Three months
before the show.
His account was shut down, hewasn't doing anything wrong and
he couldn't get anybody to helphim.
So he flew to Seattle.
He went to Amazon headquartersfirst and just tried knocking on
doors and that didn't get himanywhere.
Then he decided to go over tothe Accelerate conference and,
after talking to a couple ofpeople in booths that weren't
(02:28):
helpful, he actuallyaccidentally ran into some sort
of account health support tableor booth and within just a
couple of minutes his accountwas turned back on and, like I
said, I heard dozens and dozensof stories of similar.
Now it's great that we have aconference that we can go to, to
where that can happen, but forme it's a little frustrating to
(02:49):
know that Amazon has proven thatthey have employees there that
actually know what the platformdoes and how to fix issues and
have the power to fix issues.
But you have to go to Seattleonce a year to actually get
things done.
So that's the first off andforemost that are very specific
about the Accelerate conference.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I would say, before you move on, I would say I can
absolutely corroborate that notfrom my own experience because I
haven't been to Accelerate, butI do also know a number of
sellers that have indicatedexactly the same thing that they
went to the Accelerateconference specifically because
they had heard that this wastrue and they also got issues
resolved that they had beenworking on for many, many months
(03:27):
and couldn't get resolved, andwithin you know minutes they had
those issues taken care of.
And I would reiterate just whatyou said that whole idea that
it is possible to get theseissues resolved.
If you can just speak withsomebody who actually has half a
brain and knows how the systemoperates and can get to the
thing that needs to be adjusted,you know the fact that that
(03:49):
exists, but that there is noother feasible way to get to
that person other than going toAmazon.
Accelerate is absolutelyridiculous, but it is what it is
, agreed.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Agreed, agreed.
Well, in fact, I mean that isone of the most popular.
So they have a whole section ofthe conference or at least you
know when I've gone in the pastwhere I mean essentially they
have an entire ballroom setaside with Amazon support agents
there that, like Matt said, areyou know, have a lot of admin
privileges to do pretty muchwhatever they need to do and are
(04:25):
directly from Amazonheadquarters, not a call center
in India or wherever else.
And that's one of the mostpopular events at the conference
is sellers being able, becauseI mean, matt, you gave a perfect
example of probably the mostextreme scenario where
somebody's account is shut down.
But I feel like everybody whogoes there the vast majority of
(04:45):
people who go there as a sellerusually have at least one sort
of nagging account issue on somesort of hero product that they
just can't get fixed, and it'scrazy how they'll set up an
appointment in 10 minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
That listing is magically fixed by going to the
conference, and so just so youknow, they expand that it's not
just a ballroom anymore, it'sthe entire up top floor.
The entire top floor isdedicated to the Cellar Cafe.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I think that speaks to one.
It's very interesting to knowthat they expanded that how big
of a problem that is.
And two again, know the gamethat you're playing.
There's there are stilladvantages to be on Amazon and
all those types of things.
But also understand that Amazonknows they have more sellers
(05:33):
than they could ever want comingin the door and so they have
very little interest and areinvesting very little in keeping
sellers happy.
They care way more aboutkeeping their customers and
shareholders happy.
So whenever you think about,hey, this is unfair to sellers,
(05:54):
just know that's a part of thegame and that's not going to
change until there is othersignificant competition for
seller dollars.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Oh yeah, it is absolutely the game that you're
playing, and if you don't knowthat going into it, you're going
to be really disappointed when,when things hit the fan.
But you know it's just, it's amassive opportunity, don't I
mean?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
don't shy away from.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Amazon obviously pay attention to it, but but
recognize that probably, onbalance, the level of
opportunity is matched by thelevel of headache that you're
going to find on the platformYep.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
All right.
Well, I actually have somethingto say in terms of updates with
what you just said, john, aboutAmazon not investing in helping
sellers, and you'll besurprised to hear what I have to
say.
So, like I said, three mainthemes that were pretty much
what Accelerate was about interms of announcements from
Amazon, john, if you rememberfrom last year, really one of
the bigger themes of last yearwas their supply chain and
(06:54):
logistics.
It almost seemed like they weretrying to negate the need for
3PLs and freight forwarders andthings like that, because of
them opening up their very, verystrong supply chain to sellers,
and that theme it followedthrough to this year.
As a matter of fact, like thevery the keynote, the very
pretty much the entire keynoteof the very beginning opening
(07:16):
session was all about supplychain, was all about AWD and AGL
and all of the things thatthey're offering and some new
tools and some new services thatthey're offering.
So I would say that's probablythe biggest, one of the bigger
themes of the show theyintroduce what they call-.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Matt, just to correct you for a second before we go
on.
For the listeners that may notbe aware, awd Amazon Warehousing
and Distribution essentiallywhat it is is it feeds into your
FBA, so it's a way to haveinventory where you're not
paying nearly as much for AmazonFBA fees and it's also and I
think we've talked about it hereon the podcast before a way to
(07:52):
avoid those over inventory orunder inventory fees that Amazon
has started charging.
And then AGL is Amazon GlobalLogistics and, like you said,
matt, that's kind of theirattempt at cutting out a lot of
these logistics companies andthat type of stuff that sellers
have been working with for along time to get their inventory
into Amazon and into 3PLs.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah.
So basically both of thoserepresent what they're calling
Amazon fully managed supplychain and there's a lot of
benefits to that, but then onthe flip side, there's a lot of
things that sellers are scaredabout.
What I found about AWD and thisis very relevant to me and a
brand that I work with is AWD isa very polarizing topic.
(08:35):
You either love it or you hateit.
There's no in the middle andagain, that was really something
that Amazon was pushing andobviously, from their standpoint
, we're talking about all of thebenefits of it.
But I have some notes here thatI'm going to be reading.
So Amazon fully managed supplychain basically the overview of
kind of what their vision is isit's a fully managed option for
US-based sellers that automatesthe entire supply chain process,
(08:57):
from picking up at yourmanufacturer, wherever that may
be in China, all the way tocustomer delivery.
So that's basically what theirfully managed supply chain looks
like, and there's a lot ofdifferent services that feed
into that, like AWD and AGL, butalso Amazon shipping is a new
service that they're talkingabout.
Multi-channel fulfillment isanother way and that's actually
(09:18):
Amazon giving us the ability touse our FBA inventory to send to
sales on other channels, likeyour website or even other
marketplaces.
So yeah, so that was really abig.
Theme of the keynote was theirfully managed supply chain.
Again, there's pros and cons tothe idea of that, of giving
Amazon control of your entiresupply chain.
(09:40):
Also, multi-channel fulfillmentthis is something that I think
is a pretty I mean a pretty bigannouncement.
As of now and I usemulti-channel fulfillment pretty
exclusively for website salesand things of that nature, but
up until now the shipping timehas been five days they're
reducing that to three days.
So now, multi-channelfulfillment orders.
(10:02):
Within the next couple ofmonths we'll have a three day
delivery time, which is prettybig.
That's a pretty big deal.
That's.
That cuts it almost in half.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I would say that it's massive if they actually
fulfill on that.
And and I say that because weuse so because of our warranty
we of course send out a lot ofwarranty replacement items,
since it's unlimited replacement, and so for a long time we have
used MCF for those fulfillmentsand actually the warranty
(10:35):
system that we built outregistered, utilizes that also.
It's designed to utilize MCF.
Now we're building that out toutilize other 3PLs to fulfill on
those warranty replacements forclients, because MCF has been
really problematic for us for, Iwould say, probably nine months
(10:56):
, not only in the sense thatit's become incredibly expensive
.
It used to be.
There's always been a premiumfor shipping via MCF versus an
FBA shipment.
For an order that came in onAmazon it might have been 25
percent or something.
Now we probably pay, dependingon the product, anywhere from 60
(11:18):
to 75 percent more to go MCFversus from one of our three PLs
and doing it that way.
So we're shifting away from MCFbecause of the cost.
But also delivery times havebeen really bad, like we've been
in a situation where, becausethey put FBA ahead of MCF, we
would have MCF, like we hadwarranty shipments that were
(11:40):
supposed to take, you know,maybe five to seven days or so
and they were taking three weeks, four weeks.
And of course we've gotcustomers who are like, hey, you
said you were sending me awarranty replacement.
Where is it?
And so it's very problematic.
So I would say that's massive,you know, if they actually
fulfill on it.
I'm a little bit iffy onwhether I believe that that's
what's going to happen, becauseI think FBA is still going to
take precedence.
(12:01):
They're always going to giveorders that come in on Amazon
precedence over orders that comein off of Amazon.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So it strikes me as maybe that's a little bit pie in
the sky, but we'll see.
Yeah, so another good one.
So also, they talked about andI don't really know, I don't use
AWD, so I don't know how big ofa announcement this is but
they're going to start allowingcustom labeling via AWD so that
you can it'll allow you to sendbulk shipments to different
sales channels.
One of the big things for us isdeciding do we use AWD and
(12:33):
reduce our reliance on our 3PL?
The biggest thing for us isthat we're trying to get into
retail and we're sending a lotof samples giant, almost pallets
in some cases to somewholesalers and distributors.
So I don't know if that would be.
That was really.
The biggest question that wehad is of stopping us from, you
know, going all in with AWD ishow can we then send those types
(12:57):
of orders?
So if by bulk shipments they'retalking about being able to
send pallets to other saleschannels or people, then this
might solve that problem for us.
So, again, I don't know how bigof a deal that is, mike, maybe
you can speak a little bit moreto it, but that's one of the
announcements that they made.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I can't speak to it directly because we have not
used AWD.
We've investigated AWD.
I guess my my thing with AWD isI think that there's a lot of
potential benefit there.
I don't think it's a bad ideafor it to be a part of your
logistics solution.
And I say that because, as Johnmentioned, if you have product
(13:37):
in AWD, then the one thing thatcannot happen as long as there's
inventory at AWD is you cannottechnically stock out on a
product, which is a big deal.
Obviously, we all know sellingon Amazon, stocking out is
really problematic.
However, just because you don'tstock out technically doesn't
mean you don't still have anissue, because the way that
(14:00):
Amazon runs that is, of course.
They become your forecaster forinventory and they ship
inventory into the Amazon FCs asthey believe it's needed.
So if they don't forecastproperly, you will run out of
stock at the FCs, which meansthen what happens is your
product will still be up, it'llstill show as an FBA shipment,
(14:23):
but it will show a delivery timethat's out two or three weeks
because Amazon knows it's stillsitting at AWD.
We can't get it to the customeras fast as if it was sitting in
an FC.
So in that scenario, eventhough you don't stock out, your
CTRs and your CBRs go way downbecause your delivery time is so
far out, and so there is somespeculation on that as to which
(14:47):
is worse, you know, is it betterto stock out or is it better to
have a long delivery time?
I'm not sure that I know.
My gut tells me that longdelivery time is better, but I
don't know how much better.
So, but at least having AWDdoes solve that issue so that
you don't ever stock out.
But my gut tells me that thebetter solution is use AWD
(15:09):
because, again, as Johnsuggested, then you don't have
the issue of over inventory andunder inventory fees, right,
which is a problem if you'rerunning FBA and if you're doing
AWD, at least you avoid thosefees.
But I would have backup, I wouldhave an FBM option and
hopefully I would set it up asseller fulfilled prime from an
(15:30):
alternative 3PL so that thatlisting if your prime listing
goes to a long delivery time, Ibelieve the algorithm would.
Then, as long as the pricingwas the same, the algorithm
would pull your seller fulfilledprime listing into the buy box,
and so then your delivery timeswouldn't be out so far.
So I still think a backup.
(15:51):
3pl is a good idea.
I would never use AWD as myonly staging warehouse solution
for bringing product into AmazonFCs.
I think that is a ridiculouslystupid idea because I would
never trust it.
I think.
I just I think you're puttingway too many eggs in that basket
and Amazon's not good enough atforecasting and whatnot right
now to get that right.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, we've had a couple of clients that have used
AWD and, quite frankly, it hasworked fairly well with them.
But I think I've yeah that toyour point, mike.
You know we've definitely seenthose issues where, if sales
velocity changes drastically forwhatever reason you know say
they got featured in you knowsome big publication or whatever
(16:32):
, and now all of a suddeninstead of selling 10 a day,
they're selling 50 a day, likeAWD, and the algorithm really
has a hard time adjusting forthose types of things, and so
you don't correct me if I'mwrong, but you and you would
have more experience, since wehaven't used AWD.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You can't issue a manual inbound shipment from AWD
.
You can't initiate thatyourself.
You have to let AWD make thatdecision right.
Their algorithm is the onlything.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
That's actually one of the thing now.
Obviously this is Amazontalking, but they talked about
improvements to that algorithm,where it actually is supposedly
better than you do with your owninventory.
But again, obviously that'sAmazon talking.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, I think, if we look at realistic solutions and
this kind of comes back fullcircle to some of the other
conversations we've had, becauseI think there's a couple of
important kind of firstprinciples to keep in mind there
.
One is you have to have aproduct in stock in order to
sell, so that's the first thing.
So you don't want to.
I mean, you know running out ofstock versus, you know, having
(17:37):
two to three weeks shippingtimes is like choosing between
getting punched in the face andgetting punched in the gut, like
both of them are terribleoptions.
So you want to make sure youhave good options and so when we
look at this, you know and Ithink, mike, you know where you
were leading with this is havinga good system in place where
you know I think what you sawwas, I think, increasing your
(17:57):
inventory to like 45 to 60 daysworth of inventory actually
increase your sales velocity,increase conversion rate at FBA,
because then there was thingsthat were always sitting at the
right fulfillment warehouses towhere customers truly were
getting the product within thatone to two days.
It's kind of that Amazonsignature promise that your
(18:17):
brand is now delivering on thatpromise by giving Amazon enough
inventory to do what they needto do in order to make that
happen in their differentfulfillment centers.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So that's one.
We're working on it.
We've seen that and we actuallyhave seen other brands are
indicating the same.
Right now we're trying to makesure that we get all the pieces
put together properly so thatwe'll always be in that position
, so that we don't have thoseissues.
So, to be clear, we haven'tperfected that yet, but that's
(18:47):
what we're working on.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Not perfect yet, but you're working on it.
But the other thing to thinkabout too is that and if I
remember right, mike, the reasonyou're not in AWD is because
you have an oversized product.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, so for folks thathave a standard size product,
what I would think about is okay, so 45 to 60 days in FBA, you
know.
Maybe then what you do is 45 to60 days in AWD, and then you
(19:09):
know, strategize your inventory,any inventory beyond that at a
3PL or you know.
Even, I think, what doesn't getcovered enough, and I know
you've mentioned it and I feellike you know they probably owe
you a t-shirt or a hat orsomething at this point, but you
know something like a you at-shirt or a hat or something at
this point, but you knowsomething like skew drop yeah.
In order, you know, as that kindof third option and using you
(19:33):
know kind of a systematicapproach, rather than, oh, we're
just going to put everything inFBA or we're going to put it
all into AWD and let Amazonmanage all of it, but rather
have kind of you know, stagevelocities for the number of
days worth of inventory you'regoing to have in each, so you
get the best of all worlds ofhaving control over your
inventory.
Well, at the same time let's behonest giving Amazon what it
(19:54):
wants, so that way you'regetting the best conversion rate
, which means you're getting themost visibility, which means
you're getting the most sales.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Well, and if we're being real, I mean, let's face
it, if you're a brand that'sessentially a one-man operation,
right, maybe you're doingmid-six, mid-seven figure or
something and, for whateverreason, your brand is just a
relatively easy brand to manageand you're one person, two
people, whatever, two people,whatever.
(20:29):
Adding complexity to yourlogistic structure is hard right
.
It requires a lot of thoughtand it requires a lot of
maintenance and you can't alwaysautomate it completely.
So if you don't have additionalmembers on your team to manage
that, then I understand thedesire to just, hey, we're just
going to throw it all into AWDand keep it simple, and that way
I don't have to manage it.
Amazon will forecast it, youknow, whatever.
(20:50):
It's easy, but it's not the bestsolution.
So definitely think throughthat scenario and decide you
know how risky is that and couldyou actually bring on somebody
else you know to maybe managethat logistic side of things, so
that you have that additionalbrainpower to have.
Okay, we've got this 3PL, we'vegot AWD, maybe we've got skew
(21:12):
drop in the mix and we kind oftie all that stuff together.
It's not easy to do, but onceyou figure it out, you've got
the processes in place and youhave the person to manage it.
I think it's a much bettersolution than just throwing it
all in one basket and hoping forthe best.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Well, and I would push back on that a little bit
in the sense of I don't think itneeds to be super complicated
either, though I mean I forgetthe name of the software that
he's been working on, but I knowTravis Siegler has been working
on a software or is in thisinventory software space with a
solution that's trying to solvethat problem.
And there's other softwaresolutions out there and I know
(21:50):
personally I feel like we getsoftware to death so I'm a
little cautious as to signing upfor another software.
So I've done this onspreadsheets before, but
sometimes it's as simple as, hey, we're just going to put for
our most important products thatwe know move, maybe it's top 10
as, hey, we're just going toput for, you know, our most
important products that we knowmove Maybe it's top 10, top 20,
whatever what our sales for theweek are into a spreadsheet and
(22:11):
then we're going to extrapolatethat out two months to say what
does that inventory look likeand do we have enough or do we
not have enough and we need toorder more?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I get the pushback and I don't think you're
entirely wrong, the only theonly where the place where I
think it gets iffy is if you arean Amazon brand but you're
really just an Amazon seller,then that is not that difficult.
(22:42):
No-transcript, everythingtogether properly, and so I
(23:12):
would just say, if you are justselling product on Amazon, you
could probably get away withthat, and you know, I don't
argue that point, but I wouldsay just from my own experience
as a brand that's trying tobuild something bigger than that
there is no way on God's greenearth that two people could
manage our brand and do that,you know, and actually get it
(23:33):
right and get the inventoryright and all of the logistics
of putting the pieces together.
That's not happening.
Essentially, eight people youknow that are that are managing
our brand, and we're not amassive brand, but we have
strategies that we're trying toemploy off Amazon and they
require manpower.
So I guess that that would bethe other side of that coin.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Okay, Well, this conversation is super
interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
We have, we, we were talking about?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
we're talking about the least exciting of all of the
updates.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So we're going to move on.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I don't mean to interrupt you guys, but I do
mean to interrupt you guys.
One last thing on supply chain.
You guys are not allowed to godeep into this, although it is a
cool.
Cool, we've heard about itbefore, but MK30, drone
deliveries, amazon, supposedly.
Amazon expects to do 500million drone deliveries by the
end of this decade.
(24:23):
500 million drone deliveries bythe end of this decade.
500 million drone deliveries bythe end and it's 2024 right now
, and so they're testing it,they're getting ready to test it
in Arizona and, of all places,italy.
So really cool.
And they are talking about likeone hour delivery times.
So, like I said, you're notallowed to go into that any
further.
We're going to move over to oneof the other overarching topics
(24:46):
of the Amazon Accelerate andlet's see would you guys want to
do AI or do you want to do buywith Prime?
What do you guys pick?
Let's go with AI, let's endwith AI?
Okay, end with AI, all right.
So buy with Prime Some reallycool things happening with buy
with Prime, and actually I thinkthat there's there's some maybe
that you can start, maybelooking into the future a little
(25:08):
bit with some of the thingsthat they're allowing with buy
with prime.
First one they're going to allow.
It's going to be a buy withprime and PayPal integration.
So, starting in 2025, sellersusing buy with prime and their
websites will be able to acceptPayPal payments.
Okay, so that offers a lot offlexibility.
But then also, prime memberscan link their PayPal and Amazon
(25:31):
accounts so that they'llautomatically receive Prime
shipping benefits when checkingout with PayPal on supported
platforms like Shopify.
So that's a big one.
I don't know if that affectsany of us here, but the bigger
one is a partnership with TikTokof all people, of all companies
, and this is where I wastalking about potentially being
(25:52):
able to see into the future,because a year ago, a
partnership with Amazon andTikTok was unheard of.
Nobody thought that somethinglike that would ever happen.
However, very, very soonthey're going to allow buy with
Prime on TikTok ads, so sellersthat are running TikTok ads will
be able to display Prime badgesand shipping times to help
(26:14):
drive conversions directly fromtheir ad to their Amazon
inventory.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Which that to me okay .
So that is the one piece ofinformation that you've given
that suggests to me that thisthree-day MCF option might be
real, because that's the onlyway that that scenario actually
makes any sense at all, becausethat's all going to be MCF.
That's not true FBA.
(26:41):
So if that's MCF and they'regoing to show delivery times,
they have to be able to meetthat.
So that suggests to me thatmaybe that's a realistic thing.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah.
So what I'm wondering and thisis what I was thinking when I
was listening to this is again ayear ago, if someone were to
have told you that Amazon andTikTok would be partnering up, I
would have most of us wouldhave laughed in that person's
face.
So there's this thing going on,with the US government that
(27:11):
says TikTok will be banned bythe end of this year if they're
not purchased by a US entity.
Name the US entities that canafford TikTok.
Let's start with Meta.
Do you think Meta would everpartner with TikTok?
No, because think about all thethat would put all of the main
social media networks in onebasket, and that's not going to
(27:32):
happen.
Who are the other ones?
Apple?
I don't think that they're.
I don't think that that isgoing to happen.
Apple is going to buy TikTok?
I mean maybe, but like who else?
Who else can afford Amazon toeven entertain that conversation
?
Nvidia why would NVIDIA dosomething like that?
So if you believe that TikTokwould think about selling if the
(27:56):
US government is legitimatelygoing to shut it down, there's
very few companies that haveenough money to purchase TikTok
and I don't know, does this kindof tell into the future of,
maybe, a potential purchase byAmazon and how much sense would
that make for Amazon and evenTikTok?
How much sense would that make?
It's interesting.
(28:18):
It's interesting for sure.
But I mean for people that havechanged their focus or at least
moved some of their focus toTikTok, having a Prime badge on
TikTok ads, I mean that's goingto increase a lot of trust, it's
going to increase a lot ofconversions just because having
that Prime badge there.
So I think that's a verymassive development and I'm
wondering if there's a lot morein the cards that will come from
(28:41):
that partnership.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So I do think that's actually a big, that's a pretty
big announcement.
Again, like I said, number oneit gives me a lot more
confidence in that MCF you knowannouncement that was made which
could work out well.
I don't know if it's going tochange pricing for MCF.
Mcf is still pretty pricey, soI don't know if that changes
things too much on our end, butat least delivery times being
better would be a significantimprovement.
(29:04):
You know, I would say, in termsof that partnership the one
thing that you know about Amazon, that has always been true from
the beginning and I believe isstill true to this day they are
very forward-looking, like theyare always looking five, 10
years in the future, and so thefact that this partnership is
happening suggests that theyhave a really strong belief that
(29:27):
TikTok is going to exist infive or 10 years.
And that means either, a, theyknow the government's not
actually going to shut them downor, b, they already know
somebody's buying TikTok, whichmeans it's either them or it's
somebody else.
And my thought is I don't knowof anybody any other player in
the space that has the money tobuy TikTok that would partner
(29:49):
with Amazon in that way.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Well, I don't even think it's necessarily a money
thing.
I mean, I don't want to spendtoo much time on this, but my
we'll put it out there as mywild guess is it's less to do
with the money and it's more todo with, at least right now,
what's happening with the FTCand what will actually get
approved for some sort ofpurchase or merger.
There's no way that they'llallow Google or Meta to buy.
(30:14):
Amazon right now doesn't reallyhave any sort of meaningful
capability in the social mediaspace, Right, so they're
probably able to get that dealthrough and they have the money
in order to do it.
Now, I'm not saying that thatis Amazon, but if you're looking
at potential players on thefield, they make a lot more
(30:35):
sense than the other companiesthat are out there.
The other rumors around that isthat it may end up that the
company gets bought by a USentity, but the algorithm that
drives TikTok gets separated outand that does not come across.
So that's been one of thethings that's been discussed.
People would be more preparedin order to have a good idea of
(30:57):
what that algorithm looks likethan Amazon.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, agreed.
Okay, so last with Buy WithPrime, but again also super
exciting, and I think, michael,this will give you a little bit
more confidence in the MCFshipping times.
But they also announced anintegration with Google Shopping
Ads.
See the Amazon, and well,you're going to actually be able
to see Google shopping listingsthat have the buy with prime
(31:30):
button, but also it'll showshipping times there as well.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So a Google integration as well, which I
think is also how soon did theysay that those integrations are
going to occur?
They didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I don't that I know if they didn't give a timeframe,
but it didn't sound like it wasvery far out.
It sounded like it was likearound the same timeframe,
around beginning of 2025, kindof a thing.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, well, because you're doing these via MCF,
you're also collecting all theshipping information and the
email address and that type ofstuff.
So, from a you know, building abrand and building a list
perspective, there's a lot ofvalue in that, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
So I mean, you know, buy with prime I don't remember
how old buy with prime is, but Idon't think there was a whole
lot of adoption in the beginning.
I don't know what the numberslook like, but I've never
purchased anything using buywith prime.
But with all of thesepartnerships and integrations, I
think that they're Amazonclearly is going all in and I
mean, imagine a world where anyanything that you buy on any
(32:29):
platform, you're able to gettomorrow or the next day, or
with this drone delivery in anhour.
So you know again, there's, inmy opinion, some pros and cons
to that utopia world or dystopiaworld, however you look at it
of having Amazon be, you know,the main driver, main driver of
of e-commerce deliveries, andbut I mean they have the
(32:49):
platform to do it and so theyhave the logistics, they have
the network to do it, so so,yeah, so that's buy with prime.
In my opinion, some excitingthings, and it's going to make
you know, selling on these otherplatforms and using Amazon
inventory a whole lot easier todo.
So, all right, ai, so a lot ofupdates with AI, and again, you
(33:09):
can take these either way.
We talked about AmazonAccelerate.
One of the benefits of goingthere is Seller Cafe.
One of the things that I wasthinking about ever since the
chat GPT stormed onto the sceneis you can build custom GPTs,
and if you were to teach acustom GPT and I think there's
(33:29):
been players, people in thisspace, like, I think, steve
Simonson built some sort of atool where it basically ingested
as much of Amazon SellerUniversity as it could and it
built a chat GPT or a custom GPTthat you could ask questions
and it would give you veryspecific answers.
Well, amazon announced ProjectAmelia, which I'm going to read
(33:50):
the overview from my notes.
It's an AI-driven virtualassistant integrated into Seller
Central, designed to providepersonalized and real-time
support for sellers across keyareas such as inventory
management, demand forecastingand account health, such as
inventory management, demandforecasting and account health,
(34:10):
and one of the examples thatthey gave in one of the sessions
was you able to open up thischatbot within Seller Central
and saying what can I do toincrease sales on X SKU or what
are my delivery times with thisparticular SKU?
So basically an AI sellerassistant built into Seller
(34:30):
Central.
That, in my opinion, sounds alittle bit like an automated
Seller Central or Seller SupportStaff, which I think that there
was a lot of people again thatwere like on both sides, like
that sounds like it's great.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It just tells you to increase your ad spend Right.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, I know how you could sell more products.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Have you tried doubling your ads?
Yeah, yeah, yep, I kid, I kid.
I'm sure that there's gonna besome good stuff that comes up.
It'll also probably tell you todouble your ads yeah guarantee
you will.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
So a couple bullet points that I took as notes.
So it provides tailoredinsights based on seller data,
including marketing strategiesand operational improvements.
You can also ask Ameliaquestions and it'll respond
using generative AI, similar toother AI chatbots, guiding you
through complex tasks and alsoautomate responses to common
inquiries, like adjustingproduct listings, without the
(35:26):
need for manual case creation.
So a big announcement.
There was a lot of talk, a lotof chatter around Project Amelia
.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Did they suggest before you move on to anything
else?
Did they give any indicationthat the AI would be able to do
anything, or is it simply youcan converse with the AI and it
can tell you what you should beable to do?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
So I got the idea that it was more of a converse
conversation type of a chatbot.
However, there were rumblingsof I don't remember what session
this was, but someone talkedabout a complete redesign of
Seller Central with this AI inmind.
So I think that maybe thelong-term vision is to be able
to do things, to be able to takeaction, but as of now, it's
(36:12):
really just more of a chatbotwhich, in my opinion, I would
use that over opening up asupport case in most cases Now,
again, with most generative AItype tools, in the beginning
it's not going to be great, butit'll get better over time.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, and that's very true of Amazon's tools that it
rolls out.
So be prepared for it to berough to start out with, but
they'll get it there.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yep, exactly, all right, so that was Project
Amelia.
Now here's where most sellerswere like yeah, no thanks, ai
generated listings.
So sellers can now use AI toolsto generate complete product
listings from simple inputs likeimages and brief descriptions.
They gave a couple of examplesof this and, while it looked
cool, again it was Amazontalking, so take it with a grain
(36:57):
of salt, but apparently theytalk about it allowing sellers
to create optimized producttitles, bullet points and
descriptions quickly.
If you look at any of theemails that you get Amazon's
suggestions not only advertising, but also from your listing
most of what they say isnonsense and I wouldn't.
I wouldn't do any of thesuggestions that they give you.
So, yeah, not not too excitedabout that and, as a matter of
(37:19):
fact, I would prefer Amazon tostay off of my listings for the
most part.
Now, having said that, there wasa bit of an innovation that
they talked about, which I, interms of risk, reward and things
that I don't want Amazontouching, I think A plus content
.
I don't remember what the statis, but, like, only 18% of
shoppers even go down that faron a detail page.
(37:40):
This where Amazon's AI can nowgenerate A-plus content based on
some lifestyle images anddescriptive text.
So basically, you can take yourdescription or your bullet
points, throw it into this AItool and some images and it'll
automatically create A-pluscontent for you, and the example
(38:00):
that they gave looked prettydarn good.
So for sellers that arebootstrapping don't have the
money to pay an agency $3,000 todo A-plus content for them, I
think this is a decent solution,similar to that tool that they
introduced I don't know if itwas last year or the year before
, but where you can upload stillimages inside of Campaign
Manager and it would give yousome basic moving images to make
(38:24):
a quote-unquote video for.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
So now we've got about two minutes before we've
got to wrap up.
What other on the AI you?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
got yeah.
So I mean that's those arereally the biggest ones but also
AI, personalized productrecommendations and titles.
This is the other.
This is where most people werelike absolutely not.
But it's actually interestingwhere it's almost like where
what they said that they weregoing to do is they're not going
to change or add any content,but they're going to adjust
titles based on what a consumertypes into the search results.
(38:52):
So if someone's looking for arubber handled garlic press and
you have rubber handled andgarlic press like in disparate
places on your listing, it willmove those words to the front of
the title based on what thecustomer was searching.
So it's kind of dynamic in thatit's going to rearrange some of
(39:13):
the keywords on your title andchange it to exactly what the
customer typed into the searchbar.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So did they indicate.
Are they rewriting the wholetitle or are they just shifting
your title back and adding thatto the beginning?
Speaker 2 (39:27):
They are rewriting it for that particular search
result.
So it's not a permanent changethat they're making.
It's based contextually on whatthey typed into the search bar.
They're going to move things aslong as you have it all in the
title.
And now again, there's a lot ofchatter out there talking about
Rufus and Cosmo and all ofthese things about speaking more
(39:48):
to the consumer as opposed tokeyword stuffing.
That's I think that's anargument for this and I think
that's kind of an offshoot ofthat, where it's going to
contextually change the order ofkeywords in your title based on
what consumers are looking for.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
All right.
Well, guys, I think that'sunfortunately at this point we
got to wrap, but I think thatwas a great rapid fire on Amazon
Accelerate and I would justencourage listeners out there to
think about this as a buffet.
There are a lot of importantannouncements that come out at
Amazon Accelerate.
I know we're obviously moreexcited about some versus others
, but pick out the couple ofannouncements in there that
really excite you and dive intothose, because there is
(40:24):
definitely some absolute gold insome of those announcements
that they make, and being afirst mover can be a real
advantage in these types ofevents.
So don't get discouraged ifthere's a couple of things that
you heard in there that make youcringe.
As you probably heard in thisconversation, we're in that same
boat, but I think that there'salso value in finding those
couple of things orannouncements that Amazon made
where you say, hey, that reallyapplies to my brand and we
Welcome everyone to Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
Another Tactics Tuesday.
We are live on LinkedIn, soanybody has any questions, feel
free to put them in the chat.
We'd love to tackle them there.
And today we're really excitedto talk about Amazon Accelerate.
So the show just wrapped up acouple of weeks ago.
This is Amazon's biggest showfor sellers, where they talk
about kind of all the new thingsthat they're launching and
(00:20):
what's changing on the platform.
Matt went to the show, so I'mgoing to pass it over to Matt
and tell us about some of thethings at Accelerate that really
perched your ears up and youthink that listeners need to be
aware of.
So first off, to preface, allof this.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Most Amazon conferences I have been to as a
service provider, whether it belike behind a booth or going
there just as kind of a suitcasebrand trying to just drum up
business, talking to sellers andother service providers.
Amazon Accelerate is the onlyconference that I've gone to and
this is the second time thatI've gone to as an actual seller
, which I identify more as aseller than I do a service
(00:58):
provider anyways.
But you know, over there wassome.
There was about three majorthemes at this conference, but
what I will say that is veryspecific to Amazon Accelerate
and I heard several stories thatcorroborated this both this
year and last year that reallythe biggest benefit, in my
opinion, of Amazon Accelerate inaddition to all of the updates
(01:22):
that Amazon tells you about andthen the networking is being
able to sit face-to-face with aseller support specialist.
Basically, I think they callthem subject matter experts.
Not only are they Englishspeaking, not only do they know
what the heck is going on withthe Amazon platform, but they
have their laptop and they canactually fix things for you, and
(01:44):
I've heard stories of brandsthat had been dealing with
problems for six to eight monthsand it took a five minute
conversation with one of thesesubject matter experts that
resolved their issue within aspan of a couple of minutes.
I talked to a brand owner thatflew to Seattle from the UK His
account.
He was a eight figure seller andhis account was shut down and
(02:07):
it had probably three monthsearlier than that Three months
before the show.
His account was shut down, hewasn't doing anything wrong and
he couldn't get anybody to helphim.
So he flew to Seattle.
He went to Amazon headquartersfirst and just tried knocking on
doors and that didn't get himanywhere.
Then he decided to go over tothe Accelerate conference and,
after talking to a couple ofpeople in booths that weren't
(02:28):
helpful, he actuallyaccidentally ran into some sort
of account health support tableor booth and within just a
couple of minutes his accountwas turned back on and, like I
said, I heard dozens and dozensof stories of similar.
Now it's great that we have aconference that we can go to, to
where that can happen, but forme it's a little frustrating to
(02:49):
know that Amazon has proven thatthey have employees there that
actually know what the platformdoes and how to fix issues and
have the power to fix issues.
But you have to go to Seattleonce a year to actually get
things done.
So that's the first off andforemost that are very specific
about the Accelerate conference.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I would say, before you move on, I would say I can
absolutely corroborate that notfrom my own experience because I
haven't been to Accelerate, butI do also know a number of
sellers that have indicatedexactly the same thing that they
went to the Accelerateconference specifically because
they had heard that this wastrue and they also got issues
resolved that they had beenworking on for many, many months
(03:27):
and couldn't get resolved, andwithin you know minutes they had
those issues taken care of.
And I would reiterate just whatyou said that whole idea that
it is possible to get theseissues resolved.
If you can just speak withsomebody who actually has half a
brain and knows how the systemoperates and can get to the
thing that needs to be adjusted,you know the fact that that
(03:49):
exists, but that there is noother feasible way to get to
that person other than going toAmazon.
Accelerate is absolutelyridiculous, but it is what it is
, agreed.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Agreed, agreed.
Well, in fact, I mean that isone of the most popular.
So they have a whole section ofthe conference or at least you
know when I've gone in the pastwhere I mean essentially they
have an entire ballroom setaside with Amazon support agents
there that, like Matt said, areyou know, have a lot of admin
privileges to do pretty muchwhatever they need to do and are
(04:25):
directly from Amazonheadquarters, not a call center
in India or wherever else.
And that's one of the mostpopular events at the conference
is sellers being able, becauseI mean, matt, you gave a perfect
example of probably the mostextreme scenario where
somebody's account is shut down.
But I feel like everybody whogoes there the vast majority of
(04:45):
people who go there as a sellerusually have at least one sort
of nagging account issue on somesort of hero product that they
just can't get fixed, and it'scrazy how they'll set up an
appointment in 10 minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
That listing is magically fixed by going to the
conference, and so just so youknow, they expand that it's not
just a ballroom anymore, it'sthe entire up top floor.
The entire top floor isdedicated to the Cellar Cafe.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I think that speaks to one.
It's very interesting to knowthat they expanded that how big
of a problem that is.
And two again, know the gamethat you're playing.
There's there are stilladvantages to be on Amazon and
all those types of things.
But also understand that Amazonknows they have more sellers
(05:33):
than they could ever want comingin the door and so they have
very little interest and areinvesting very little in keeping
sellers happy.
They care way more aboutkeeping their customers and
shareholders happy.
So whenever you think about,hey, this is unfair to sellers,
(05:54):
just know that's a part of thegame and that's not going to
change until there is othersignificant competition for
seller dollars.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Oh yeah, it is absolutely the game that you're
playing, and if you don't knowthat going into it, you're going
to be really disappointed when,when things hit the fan.
But you know it's just, it's amassive opportunity, don't I
mean?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
don't shy away from.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Amazon obviously pay attention to it, but but
recognize that probably, onbalance, the level of
opportunity is matched by thelevel of headache that you're
going to find on the platformYep.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
All right.
Well, I actually have somethingto say in terms of updates with
what you just said, john, aboutAmazon not investing in helping
sellers, and you'll besurprised to hear what I have to
say.
So, like I said, three mainthemes that were pretty much
what Accelerate was about interms of announcements from
Amazon, john, if you rememberfrom last year, really one of
the bigger themes of last yearwas their supply chain and
(06:54):
logistics.
It almost seemed like they weretrying to negate the need for
3PLs and freight forwarders andthings like that, because of
them opening up their very, verystrong supply chain to sellers,
and that theme it followedthrough to this year.
As a matter of fact, like thevery the keynote, the very
pretty much the entire keynoteof the very beginning opening
(07:16):
session was all about supplychain, was all about AWD and AGL
and all of the things thatthey're offering and some new
tools and some new services thatthey're offering.
So I would say that's probablythe biggest, one of the bigger
themes of the show theyintroduce what they call-.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Matt, just to correct you for a second before we go
on.
For the listeners that may notbe aware, awd Amazon Warehousing
and Distribution essentiallywhat it is is it feeds into your
FBA, so it's a way to haveinventory where you're not
paying nearly as much for AmazonFBA fees and it's also and I
think we've talked about it hereon the podcast before a way to
(07:52):
avoid those over inventory orunder inventory fees that Amazon
has started charging.
And then AGL is Amazon GlobalLogistics and, like you said,
matt, that's kind of theirattempt at cutting out a lot of
these logistics companies andthat type of stuff that sellers
have been working with for along time to get their inventory
into Amazon and into 3PLs.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah.
So basically both of thoserepresent what they're calling
Amazon fully managed supplychain and there's a lot of
benefits to that, but then onthe flip side, there's a lot of
things that sellers are scaredabout.
What I found about AWD and thisis very relevant to me and a
brand that I work with is AWD isa very polarizing topic.
(08:35):
You either love it or you hateit.
There's no in the middle andagain, that was really something
that Amazon was pushing andobviously, from their standpoint
, we're talking about all of thebenefits of it.
But I have some notes here thatI'm going to be reading.
So Amazon fully managed supplychain basically the overview of
kind of what their vision is isit's a fully managed option for
US-based sellers that automatesthe entire supply chain process,
(08:57):
from picking up at yourmanufacturer, wherever that may
be in China, all the way tocustomer delivery.
So that's basically what theirfully managed supply chain looks
like, and there's a lot ofdifferent services that feed
into that, like AWD and AGL, butalso Amazon shipping is a new
service that they're talkingabout.
Multi-channel fulfillment isanother way and that's actually
(09:18):
Amazon giving us the ability touse our FBA inventory to send to
sales on other channels, likeyour website or even other
marketplaces.
So yeah, so that was really abig.
Theme of the keynote was theirfully managed supply chain.
Again, there's pros and cons tothe idea of that, of giving
Amazon control of your entiresupply chain.
(09:40):
Also, multi-channel fulfillmentthis is something that I think
is a pretty I mean a pretty bigannouncement.
As of now and I usemulti-channel fulfillment pretty
exclusively for website salesand things of that nature, but
up until now the shipping timehas been five days they're
reducing that to three days.
So now, multi-channelfulfillment orders.
(10:02):
Within the next couple ofmonths we'll have a three day
delivery time, which is prettybig.
That's a pretty big deal.
That's.
That cuts it almost in half.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I would say that it's massive if they actually
fulfill on that.
And and I say that because weuse so because of our warranty
we of course send out a lot ofwarranty replacement items,
since it's unlimited replacement, and so for a long time we have
used MCF for those fulfillmentsand actually the warranty
(10:35):
system that we built outregistered, utilizes that also.
It's designed to utilize MCF.
Now we're building that out toutilize other 3PLs to fulfill on
those warranty replacements forclients, because MCF has been
really problematic for us for, Iwould say, probably nine months
(10:56):
, not only in the sense thatit's become incredibly expensive
.
It used to be.
There's always been a premiumfor shipping via MCF versus an
FBA shipment.
For an order that came in onAmazon it might have been 25
percent or something.
Now we probably pay, dependingon the product, anywhere from 60
(11:18):
to 75 percent more to go MCFversus from one of our three PLs
and doing it that way.
So we're shifting away from MCFbecause of the cost.
But also delivery times havebeen really bad, like we've been
in a situation where, becausethey put FBA ahead of MCF, we
would have MCF, like we hadwarranty shipments that were
(11:40):
supposed to take, you know,maybe five to seven days or so
and they were taking three weeks, four weeks.
And of course we've gotcustomers who are like, hey, you
said you were sending me awarranty replacement.
Where is it?
And so it's very problematic.
So I would say that's massive,you know, if they actually
fulfill on it.
I'm a little bit iffy onwhether I believe that that's
what's going to happen, becauseI think FBA is still going to
take precedence.
(12:01):
They're always going to giveorders that come in on Amazon
precedence over orders that comein off of Amazon.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So it strikes me as maybe that's a little bit pie in
the sky, but we'll see.
Yeah, so another good one.
So also, they talked about andI don't really know, I don't use
AWD, so I don't know how big ofa announcement this is but
they're going to start allowingcustom labeling via AWD so that
you can it'll allow you to sendbulk shipments to different
sales channels.
One of the big things for us isdeciding do we use AWD and
(12:33):
reduce our reliance on our 3PL?
The biggest thing for us isthat we're trying to get into
retail and we're sending a lotof samples giant, almost pallets
in some cases to somewholesalers and distributors.
So I don't know if that would be.
That was really.
The biggest question that wehad is of stopping us from, you
know, going all in with AWD ishow can we then send those types
(12:57):
of orders?
So if by bulk shipments they'retalking about being able to
send pallets to other saleschannels or people, then this
might solve that problem for us.
So, again, I don't know how bigof a deal that is, mike, maybe
you can speak a little bit moreto it, but that's one of the
announcements that they made.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I can't speak to it directly because we have not
used AWD.
We've investigated AWD.
I guess my my thing with AWD isI think that there's a lot of
potential benefit there.
I don't think it's a bad ideafor it to be a part of your
logistics solution.
And I say that because, as Johnmentioned, if you have product
(13:37):
in AWD, then the one thing thatcannot happen as long as there's
inventory at AWD is you cannottechnically stock out on a
product, which is a big deal.
Obviously, we all know sellingon Amazon, stocking out is
really problematic.
However, just because you don'tstock out technically doesn't
mean you don't still have anissue, because the way that
(14:00):
Amazon runs that is, of course.
They become your forecaster forinventory and they ship
inventory into the Amazon FCs asthey believe it's needed.
So if they don't forecastproperly, you will run out of
stock at the FCs, which meansthen what happens is your
product will still be up, it'llstill show as an FBA shipment,
(14:23):
but it will show a delivery timethat's out two or three weeks
because Amazon knows it's stillsitting at AWD.
We can't get it to the customeras fast as if it was sitting in
an FC.
So in that scenario, eventhough you don't stock out, your
CTRs and your CBRs go way downbecause your delivery time is so
far out, and so there is somespeculation on that as to which
(14:47):
is worse, you know, is it betterto stock out or is it better to
have a long delivery time?
I'm not sure that I know.
My gut tells me that longdelivery time is better, but I
don't know how much better.
So, but at least having AWDdoes solve that issue so that
you don't ever stock out.
But my gut tells me that thebetter solution is use AWD
(15:09):
because, again, as Johnsuggested, then you don't have
the issue of over inventory andunder inventory fees, right,
which is a problem if you'rerunning FBA and if you're doing
AWD, at least you avoid thosefees.
But I would have backup, I wouldhave an FBM option and
hopefully I would set it up asseller fulfilled prime from an
(15:30):
alternative 3PL so that thatlisting if your prime listing
goes to a long delivery time, Ibelieve the algorithm would.
Then, as long as the pricingwas the same, the algorithm
would pull your seller fulfilledprime listing into the buy box,
and so then your delivery timeswouldn't be out so far.
So I still think a backup.
(15:51):
3pl is a good idea.
I would never use AWD as myonly staging warehouse solution
for bringing product into AmazonFCs.
I think that is a ridiculouslystupid idea because I would
never trust it.
I think.
I just I think you're puttingway too many eggs in that basket
and Amazon's not good enough atforecasting and whatnot right
now to get that right.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, we've had a couple of clients that have used
AWD and, quite frankly, it hasworked fairly well with them.
But I think I've yeah that toyour point, mike.
You know we've definitely seenthose issues where, if sales
velocity changes drastically forwhatever reason you know say
they got featured in you knowsome big publication or whatever
(16:32):
, and now all of a suddeninstead of selling 10 a day,
they're selling 50 a day, likeAWD, and the algorithm really
has a hard time adjusting forthose types of things, and so
you don't correct me if I'mwrong, but you and you would
have more experience, since wehaven't used AWD.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You can't issue a manual inbound shipment from AWD
.
You can't initiate thatyourself.
You have to let AWD make thatdecision right.
Their algorithm is the onlything.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
That's actually one of the thing now.
Obviously this is Amazontalking, but they talked about
improvements to that algorithm,where it actually is supposedly
better than you do with your owninventory.
But again, obviously that'sAmazon talking.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, I think, if we look at realistic solutions and
this kind of comes back fullcircle to some of the other
conversations we've had, becauseI think there's a couple of
important kind of firstprinciples to keep in mind there
.
One is you have to have aproduct in stock in order to
sell, so that's the first thing.
So you don't want to.
I mean, you know running out ofstock versus, you know, having
(17:37):
two to three weeks shippingtimes is like choosing between
getting punched in the face andgetting punched in the gut, like
both of them are terribleoptions.
So you want to make sure youhave good options and so when we
look at this, you know and Ithink, mike, you know where you
were leading with this is havinga good system in place where
you know I think what you sawwas, I think, increasing your
(17:57):
inventory to like 45 to 60 daysworth of inventory actually
increase your sales velocity,increase conversion rate at FBA,
because then there was thingsthat were always sitting at the
right fulfillment warehouses towhere customers truly were
getting the product within thatone to two days.
It's kind of that Amazonsignature promise that your
(18:17):
brand is now delivering on thatpromise by giving Amazon enough
inventory to do what they needto do in order to make that
happen in their differentfulfillment centers.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So that's one.
We're working on it.
We've seen that and we actuallyhave seen other brands are
indicating the same.
Right now we're trying to makesure that we get all the pieces
put together properly so thatwe'll always be in that position
, so that we don't have thoseissues.
So, to be clear, we haven'tperfected that yet, but that's
(18:47):
what we're working on.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Not perfect yet, but you're working on it.
But the other thing to thinkabout too is that and if I
remember right, mike, the reasonyou're not in AWD is because
you have an oversized product.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, so for folks thathave a standard size product,
what I would think about is okay, so 45 to 60 days in FBA, you
know.
Maybe then what you do is 45 to60 days in AWD, and then you
(19:09):
know, strategize your inventory,any inventory beyond that at a
3PL or you know.
Even, I think, what doesn't getcovered enough, and I know
you've mentioned it and I feellike you know they probably owe
you a t-shirt or a hat orsomething at this point, but you
know something like a you at-shirt or a hat or something at
this point, but you knowsomething like skew drop yeah.
In order, you know, as that kindof third option and using you
(19:33):
know kind of a systematicapproach, rather than, oh, we're
just going to put everything inFBA or we're going to put it
all into AWD and let Amazonmanage all of it, but rather
have kind of you know, stagevelocities for the number of
days worth of inventory you'regoing to have in each, so you
get the best of all worlds ofhaving control over your
inventory.
Well, at the same time let's behonest giving Amazon what it
(19:54):
wants, so that way you'regetting the best conversion rate
, which means you're getting themost visibility, which means
you're getting the most sales.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Well, and if we're being real, I mean, let's face
it, if you're a brand that'sessentially a one-man operation,
right, maybe you're doingmid-six, mid-seven figure or
something and, for whateverreason, your brand is just a
relatively easy brand to manageand you're one person, two
people, whatever, two people,whatever.
(20:29):
Adding complexity to yourlogistic structure is hard right
.
It requires a lot of thoughtand it requires a lot of
maintenance and you can't alwaysautomate it completely.
So if you don't have additionalmembers on your team to manage
that, then I understand thedesire to just, hey, we're just
going to throw it all into AWDand keep it simple, and that way
I don't have to manage it.
Amazon will forecast it, youknow, whatever.
(20:50):
It's easy, but it's not the bestsolution.
So definitely think throughthat scenario and decide you
know how risky is that and couldyou actually bring on somebody
else you know to maybe managethat logistic side of things, so
that you have that additionalbrainpower to have.
Okay, we've got this 3PL, we'vegot AWD, maybe we've got skew
(21:12):
drop in the mix and we kind oftie all that stuff together.
It's not easy to do, but onceyou figure it out, you've got
the processes in place and youhave the person to manage it.
I think it's a much bettersolution than just throwing it
all in one basket and hoping forthe best.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Well, and I would push back on that a little bit
in the sense of I don't think itneeds to be super complicated
either, though I mean I forgetthe name of the software that
he's been working on, but I knowTravis Siegler has been working
on a software or is in thisinventory software space with a
solution that's trying to solvethat problem.
And there's other softwaresolutions out there and I know
(21:50):
personally I feel like we getsoftware to death so I'm a
little cautious as to signing upfor another software.
So I've done this onspreadsheets before, but
sometimes it's as simple as, hey, we're just going to put for
our most important products thatwe know move, maybe it's top 10
as, hey, we're just going toput for, you know, our most
important products that we knowmove Maybe it's top 10, top 20,
whatever what our sales for theweek are into a spreadsheet and
(22:11):
then we're going to extrapolatethat out two months to say what
does that inventory look likeand do we have enough or do we
not have enough and we need toorder more?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I get the pushback and I don't think you're
entirely wrong, the only theonly where the place where I
think it gets iffy is if you arean Amazon brand but you're
really just an Amazon seller,then that is not that difficult.
(22:42):
No-transcript, everythingtogether properly, and so I
(23:12):
would just say, if you are justselling product on Amazon, you
could probably get away withthat, and you know, I don't
argue that point, but I wouldsay just from my own experience
as a brand that's trying tobuild something bigger than that
there is no way on God's greenearth that two people could
manage our brand and do that,you know, and actually get it
(23:33):
right and get the inventoryright and all of the logistics
of putting the pieces together.
That's not happening.
Essentially, eight people youknow that are that are managing
our brand, and we're not amassive brand, but we have
strategies that we're trying toemploy off Amazon and they
require manpower.
So I guess that that would bethe other side of that coin.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Okay, Well, this conversation is super
interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
We have, we, we were talking about?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
we're talking about the least exciting of all of the
updates.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So we're going to move on.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I don't mean to interrupt you guys, but I do
mean to interrupt you guys.
One last thing on supply chain.
You guys are not allowed to godeep into this, although it is a
cool.
Cool, we've heard about itbefore, but MK30, drone
deliveries, amazon, supposedly.
Amazon expects to do 500million drone deliveries by the
end of this decade.
(24:23):
500 million drone deliveries bythe end of this decade.
500 million drone deliveries bythe end and it's 2024 right now
, and so they're testing it,they're getting ready to test it
in Arizona and, of all places,italy.
So really cool.
And they are talking about likeone hour delivery times.
So, like I said, you're notallowed to go into that any
further.
We're going to move over to oneof the other overarching topics
(24:46):
of the Amazon Accelerate andlet's see would you guys want to
do AI or do you want to do buywith Prime?
What do you guys pick?
Let's go with AI, let's endwith AI?
Okay, end with AI, all right.
So buy with Prime Some reallycool things happening with buy
with Prime, and actually I thinkthat there's there's some maybe
that you can start, maybelooking into the future a little
(25:08):
bit with some of the thingsthat they're allowing with buy
with prime.
First one they're going to allow.
It's going to be a buy withprime and PayPal integration.
So, starting in 2025, sellersusing buy with prime and their
websites will be able to acceptPayPal payments.
Okay, so that offers a lot offlexibility.
But then also, prime memberscan link their PayPal and Amazon
(25:31):
accounts so that they'llautomatically receive Prime
shipping benefits when checkingout with PayPal on supported
platforms like Shopify.
So that's a big one.
I don't know if that affectsany of us here, but the bigger
one is a partnership with TikTokof all people, of all companies
, and this is where I wastalking about potentially being
(25:52):
able to see into the future,because a year ago, a
partnership with Amazon andTikTok was unheard of.
Nobody thought that somethinglike that would ever happen.
However, very, very soonthey're going to allow buy with
Prime on TikTok ads, so sellersthat are running TikTok ads will
be able to display Prime badgesand shipping times to help
(26:14):
drive conversions directly fromtheir ad to their Amazon
inventory.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Which that to me okay .
So that is the one piece ofinformation that you've given
that suggests to me that thisthree-day MCF option might be
real, because that's the onlyway that that scenario actually
makes any sense at all, becausethat's all going to be MCF.
That's not true FBA.
(26:41):
So if that's MCF and they'regoing to show delivery times,
they have to be able to meetthat.
So that suggests to me thatmaybe that's a realistic thing.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah.
So what I'm wondering and thisis what I was thinking when I
was listening to this is again ayear ago, if someone were to
have told you that Amazon andTikTok would be partnering up, I
would have most of us wouldhave laughed in that person's
face.
So there's this thing going on,with the US government that
(27:11):
says TikTok will be banned bythe end of this year if they're
not purchased by a US entity.
Name the US entities that canafford TikTok.
Let's start with Meta.
Do you think Meta would everpartner with TikTok?
No, because think about all thethat would put all of the main
social media networks in onebasket, and that's not going to
(27:32):
happen.
Who are the other ones?
Apple?
I don't think that they're.
I don't think that that isgoing to happen.
Apple is going to buy TikTok?
I mean maybe, but like who else?
Who else can afford Amazon toeven entertain that conversation
?
Nvidia why would NVIDIA dosomething like that?
So if you believe that TikTokwould think about selling if the
(27:56):
US government is legitimatelygoing to shut it down, there's
very few companies that haveenough money to purchase TikTok
and I don't know, does this kindof tell into the future of,
maybe, a potential purchase byAmazon and how much sense would
that make for Amazon and evenTikTok?
How much sense would that make?
It's interesting.
(28:18):
It's interesting for sure.
But I mean for people that havechanged their focus or at least
moved some of their focus toTikTok, having a Prime badge on
TikTok ads, I mean that's goingto increase a lot of trust, it's
going to increase a lot ofconversions just because having
that Prime badge there.
So I think that's a verymassive development and I'm
wondering if there's a lot morein the cards that will come from
(28:41):
that partnership.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So I do think that's actually a big, that's a pretty
big announcement.
Again, like I said, number oneit gives me a lot more
confidence in that MCF you knowannouncement that was made which
could work out well.
I don't know if it's going tochange pricing for MCF.
Mcf is still pretty pricey, soI don't know if that changes
things too much on our end, butat least delivery times being
better would be a significantimprovement.
(29:04):
You know, I would say, in termsof that partnership the one
thing that you know about Amazon, that has always been true from
the beginning and I believe isstill true to this day they are
very forward-looking, like theyare always looking five, 10
years in the future, and so thefact that this partnership is
happening suggests that theyhave a really strong belief that
(29:27):
TikTok is going to exist infive or 10 years.
And that means either, a, theyknow the government's not
actually going to shut them downor, b, they already know
somebody's buying TikTok, whichmeans it's either them or it's
somebody else.
And my thought is I don't knowof anybody any other player in
the space that has the money tobuy TikTok that would partner
(29:49):
with Amazon in that way.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Well, I don't even think it's necessarily a money
thing.
I mean, I don't want to spendtoo much time on this, but my
we'll put it out there as mywild guess is it's less to do
with the money and it's more todo with, at least right now,
what's happening with the FTCand what will actually get
approved for some sort ofpurchase or merger.
There's no way that they'llallow Google or Meta to buy.
(30:14):
Amazon right now doesn't reallyhave any sort of meaningful
capability in the social mediaspace, Right, so they're
probably able to get that dealthrough and they have the money
in order to do it.
Now, I'm not saying that thatis Amazon, but if you're looking
at potential players on thefield, they make a lot more
(30:35):
sense than the other companiesthat are out there.
The other rumors around that isthat it may end up that the
company gets bought by a USentity, but the algorithm that
drives TikTok gets separated outand that does not come across.
So that's been one of thethings that's been discussed.
People would be more preparedin order to have a good idea of
(30:57):
what that algorithm looks likethan Amazon.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, agreed.
Okay, so last with Buy WithPrime, but again also super
exciting, and I think, michael,this will give you a little bit
more confidence in the MCFshipping times.
But they also announced anintegration with Google Shopping
Ads.
See the Amazon, and well,you're going to actually be able
to see Google shopping listingsthat have the buy with prime
(31:30):
button, but also it'll showshipping times there as well.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So a Google integration as well, which I
think is also how soon did theysay that those integrations are
going to occur?
They didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I don't that I know if they didn't give a timeframe,
but it didn't sound like it wasvery far out.
It sounded like it was likearound the same timeframe,
around beginning of 2025, kindof a thing.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, well, because you're doing these via MCF,
you're also collecting all theshipping information and the
email address and that type ofstuff.
So, from a you know, building abrand and building a list
perspective, there's a lot ofvalue in that, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
So I mean, you know, buy with prime I don't remember
how old buy with prime is, but Idon't think there was a whole
lot of adoption in the beginning.
I don't know what the numberslook like, but I've never
purchased anything using buywith prime.
But with all of thesepartnerships and integrations, I
think that they're Amazonclearly is going all in and I
mean, imagine a world where anyanything that you buy on any
(32:29):
platform, you're able to gettomorrow or the next day, or
with this drone delivery in anhour.
So you know again, there's, inmy opinion, some pros and cons
to that utopia world or dystopiaworld, however you look at it
of having Amazon be, you know,the main driver, main driver of
of e-commerce deliveries, andbut I mean they have the
(32:49):
platform to do it and so theyhave the logistics, they have
the network to do it, so so,yeah, so that's buy with prime.
In my opinion, some excitingthings, and it's going to make
you know, selling on these otherplatforms and using Amazon
inventory a whole lot easier todo.
So, all right, ai, so a lot ofupdates with AI, and again, you
(33:09):
can take these either way.
We talked about AmazonAccelerate.
One of the benefits of goingthere is Seller Cafe.
One of the things that I wasthinking about ever since the
chat GPT stormed onto the sceneis you can build custom GPTs,
and if you were to teach acustom GPT and I think there's
(33:29):
been players, people in thisspace, like, I think, steve
Simonson built some sort of atool where it basically ingested
as much of Amazon SellerUniversity as it could and it
built a chat GPT or a custom GPTthat you could ask questions
and it would give you veryspecific answers.
Well, amazon announced ProjectAmelia, which I'm going to read
(33:50):
the overview from my notes.
It's an AI-driven virtualassistant integrated into Seller
Central, designed to providepersonalized and real-time
support for sellers across keyareas such as inventory
management, demand forecastingand account health, such as
inventory management, demandforecasting and account health,
(34:10):
and one of the examples thatthey gave in one of the sessions
was you able to open up thischatbot within Seller Central
and saying what can I do toincrease sales on X SKU or what
are my delivery times with thisparticular SKU?
So basically an AI sellerassistant built into Seller
(34:30):
Central.
That, in my opinion, sounds alittle bit like an automated
Seller Central or Seller SupportStaff, which I think that there
was a lot of people again thatwere like on both sides, like
that sounds like it's great.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It just tells you to increase your ad spend Right.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, I know how you could sell more products.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Have you tried doubling your ads?
Yeah, yeah, yep, I kid, I kid.
I'm sure that there's gonna besome good stuff that comes up.
It'll also probably tell you todouble your ads yeah guarantee
you will.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
So a couple bullet points that I took as notes.
So it provides tailoredinsights based on seller data,
including marketing strategiesand operational improvements.
You can also ask Ameliaquestions and it'll respond
using generative AI, similar toother AI chatbots, guiding you
through complex tasks and alsoautomate responses to common
inquiries, like adjustingproduct listings, without the
(35:26):
need for manual case creation.
So a big announcement.
There was a lot of talk, a lotof chatter around Project Amelia
.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Did they suggest before you move on to anything
else?
Did they give any indicationthat the AI would be able to do
anything, or is it simply youcan converse with the AI and it
can tell you what you should beable to do?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
So I got the idea that it was more of a converse
conversation type of a chatbot.
However, there were rumblingsof I don't remember what session
this was, but someone talkedabout a complete redesign of
Seller Central with this AI inmind.
So I think that maybe thelong-term vision is to be able
to do things, to be able to takeaction, but as of now, it's
(36:12):
really just more of a chatbotwhich, in my opinion, I would
use that over opening up asupport case in most cases Now,
again, with most generative AItype tools, in the beginning
it's not going to be great, butit'll get better over time.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, and that's very true of Amazon's tools that it
rolls out.
So be prepared for it to berough to start out with, but
they'll get it there.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yep, exactly, all right, so that was Project
Amelia.
Now here's where most sellerswere like yeah, no thanks, ai
generated listings.
So sellers can now use AI toolsto generate complete product
listings from simple inputs likeimages and brief descriptions.
They gave a couple of examplesof this and, while it looked
cool, again it was Amazontalking, so take it with a grain
(36:57):
of salt, but apparently theytalk about it allowing sellers
to create optimized producttitles, bullet points and
descriptions quickly.
If you look at any of theemails that you get Amazon's
suggestions not only advertising, but also from your listing
most of what they say isnonsense and I wouldn't.
I wouldn't do any of thesuggestions that they give you.
So, yeah, not not too excitedabout that and, as a matter of
(37:19):
fact, I would prefer Amazon tostay off of my listings for the
most part.
Now, having said that, there wasa bit of an innovation that
they talked about, which I, interms of risk, reward and things
that I don't want Amazontouching, I think A plus content
.
I don't remember what the statis, but, like, only 18% of
shoppers even go down that faron a detail page.
(37:40):
This where Amazon's AI can nowgenerate A-plus content based on
some lifestyle images anddescriptive text.
So basically, you can take yourdescription or your bullet
points, throw it into this AItool and some images and it'll
automatically create A-pluscontent for you, and the example
(38:00):
that they gave looked prettydarn good.
So for sellers that arebootstrapping don't have the
money to pay an agency $3,000 todo A-plus content for them, I
think this is a decent solution,similar to that tool that they
introduced I don't know if itwas last year or the year before
, but where you can upload stillimages inside of Campaign
Manager and it would give yousome basic moving images to make
(38:24):
a quote-unquote video for.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
So now we've got about two minutes before we've
got to wrap up.
What other on the AI you?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
got yeah.
So I mean that's those arereally the biggest ones but also
AI, personalized productrecommendations and titles.
This is the other.
This is where most people werelike absolutely not.
But it's actually interestingwhere it's almost like where
what they said that they weregoing to do is they're not going
to change or add any content,but they're going to adjust
titles based on what a consumertypes into the search results.
(38:52):
So if someone's looking for arubber handled garlic press and
you have rubber handled andgarlic press like in disparate
places on your listing, it willmove those words to the front of
the title based on what thecustomer was searching.
So it's kind of dynamic in thatit's going to rearrange some of
(39:13):
the keywords on your title andchange it to exactly what the
customer typed into the searchbar.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So did they indicate.
Are they rewriting the wholetitle or are they just shifting
your title back and adding thatto the beginning?
Speaker 2 (39:27):
They are rewriting it for that particular search
result.
So it's not a permanent changethat they're making.
It's based contextually on whatthey typed into the search bar.
They're going to move things aslong as you have it all in the
title.
And now again, there's a lot ofchatter out there talking about
Rufus and Cosmo and all ofthese things about speaking more
(39:48):
to the consumer as opposed tokeyword stuffing.
That's I think that's anargument for this and I think
that's kind of an offshoot ofthat, where it's going to
contextually change the order ofkeywords in your title based on
what consumers are looking for.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
All right.
Well, guys, I think that'sunfortunately at this point we
got to wrap, but I think thatwas a great rapid fire on Amazon
Accelerate and I would justencourage listeners out there to
think about this as a buffet.
There are a lot of importantannouncements that come out at
Amazon Accelerate.
I know we're obviously moreexcited about some versus others
, but pick out the couple ofannouncements in there that
really excite you and dive intothose, because there is
(40:24):
definitely some absolute gold insome of those announcements
that they make, and being afirst mover can be a real
advantage in these types ofevents.
So don't get discouraged ifthere's a couple of things that
you heard in there that make youcringe.
As you probably heard in thisconversation, we're in that same
boat, but I think that there'salso value in finding those
couple of things orannouncements that Amazon made
where you say, hey, that reallyapplies to my brand and we
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!