May 7, 2024 • 45 mins
Unlock the full potential of your Amazon business with expert insights from Hymie Zebede, who skyrocketed a brand's revenues from $3 million to an astonishing $24 million. In this episode of Planet Amazon, we're pulling back the curtain on the Amazon marketplace, providing you with the insider strategies you need to succeed. From dissecting the Amazon algorithm to optimizing your product listings, Hymie's experience in scaling brands is a goldmine for any seller looking to boost their online presence and sales.
Navigating the Amazon landscape requires more than just a good product; it demands a mastery of the platform's ever-changing rules and an agile approach to marketing. We dive into the art of acquiring and leveraging product reviews, the ins and outs of PPC advertising, and why a vigilant eye on sales data and keywords is essential for long-term success. Whether you're a seasoned seller or new to the game, the strategies discussed here are practical, battle-tested, and ready to be implemented.
We also explore the power of driving external traffic to your Amazon listings, the intricacies of bidding on competitors' brand names, and the importance of staying ahead of Amazon's stock-level regulations. So gear up for a journey to the top of Amazon's search rankings and get ready to turn those clicks into conversions with the wisdom from this episode.
You can learn more about Hymie here: https://www.hymiezebede.com/ and you can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hymiezebede/
Want to chat with us about this podcast? Send us a text message here
The Planet Amazon podcast, brought to you by Phelps United, addresses all things Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces. In each episode, we talk with Brands, Agencies, and Sellers about Amazon news, new features, policies, brand policies, logistics, marketing, issues, and challenges, among other topics.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcement (00:00):
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:17):
Hello everybody and welcome to Planet Amazon,
where we talk about all thingsAmazon.
I'm Adam Schafer and today wehave a great guest.
I want to welcome to thepodcast, Hymie Zebede.
Hey Adam, hey Hymie Zebede.
Who is Hymie Zabidi, by the way?
I'm sure everybody's asking.
Well, Hymie has 12 years ofexperience creating and scaling
(00:38):
brands on Amazon.
com and has a proven trackrecord of creating, launching
individual listings that sellover $1 million a year.
He has a top levelunderstanding of the art and
science of the Amazon.
com algorithm, which Idefinitely want to know more
about, and one of Hymie's bigrecent wins is taking a company
(00:59):
from $3 million a year in salesto over $24 million a year in
sales.
So I definitely want to hearabout that.
Welcome to Planet Amazon, .
Can you tell the audience a bitmore about yourself and how you
got into this crazy game?
Hymie Zebede (01:16):
Sure, adam, thank you for having me here.
I'm very excited.
I started selling on Amazon 12years ago and originally I just
threw up a bunch of things tosee what would work the best,
and a few things really took off.
I started bringing incontainers of it and at that
time I had a middleman bringingthe stuff in for me and I was
(01:40):
living off of it for years.
I bought a house with it.
I made a lot of money from it,thank God.
And then at one point I tried togo direct to import it myself
from China and I had no idea howto do any of that, how to
negotiate with the suppliers andquality control and all those
(02:01):
things.
So I brought in one containercompletely garbage, it was all.
It was all yeah.
And then I brought in a secondcontainer right after that, also
worthless.
I lost a lot of money bringingin my own things, so I was a
little bit fed up with that.
I sold my business, I sold mybrand and and I said you know
(02:24):
what, I know how to build greatsuccessful listings on Amazon.
I don't know anything elseabout negotiating with suppliers
and all that other side of thebusiness.
Let me go to people that knowabout importing goods, that
probably have a lot more moneyand a lot more inventory than me
and let me show them how toreally scale on Amazon.
(02:46):
And I would go up to them andtell them listen, look at my
sales last year.
Look at your sales.
I'm a nobody and I'm beatingyou up.
Look at my sales.
It's so much more than you.
Let's see what I could do foryou and built up some successful
listings for people.
Word spread oh, Hymie made thislisting, Hymie made that.
And then I just startedfull-time managing accounts,
(03:08):
scaling businesses on Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (03:11):
It's funny.
I thought you were going to sayyou cracked the code on
bringing stuff in from Asia, andit's actually not.
You got fed up with it and youfocused on what you're really
good at, so that's good to hear.
Not everybody can say that andyou really saw your niche was
helping people sell on Amazonnot necessarily.
You know building product andbringing it in from overseas, so
(03:32):
that's awesome.
Hymie Zebede (03:34):
Yeah, I think it's a whole different business.
You know, like you got toreally focus on something that
you do well and do it the bestthat you can hey.
Adam Shaffer (03:43):
so you got to tell me, because I haven't ever
cracked the code on it.
But what is the art and scienceof the amazon.
com algorithm?
Isn't it always changing?
How do you figure this thingout, man?
Hymie Zebede (03:57):
So it is always changing.
It changed a lot since when Ifirst started.
It used to be much easier youjust throw something up there
and it would basically sell onits own, even if the pictures
are garbage or it was missingall the right keywords.
Nowadays you really need tostep up your game.
I'm in all different types ofmasterminds and watching
(04:17):
constantly YouTubes and podcastsand looking up online all the
different changes that Amazonmakes.
A lot of times they'll makechanges, very frequently.
They'll make changes and theydon't tell anybody about it
because they don't like to sharetheir algorithm, but really
just staying in the business andseeing what's going on and you
(04:40):
really have to do everything thebest that you can.
You need amazing images.
You need to have all thekeywords everywhere the title,
the bullets, keywords, backend.
You need to make sure thatyou're looking at your
conversion rate, yourclick-through rate.
There's so many things thatneed to be.
It used to be.
You could do maybe two out ofthe five things.
Now you need to do every singleone of those five things
(05:01):
perfectly if you really want tobuild it.
You know, yeah, no that makessense.
Adam Shaffer (05:05):
I mean, what's funny is what you're saying is
true.
I mean Amazon.
If you're not in it every dayand you're not part of the
communities and listening andlearning and reading Amazon will
take off and take away from you.
You'll get lost in the abyss.
You need to be connected to acommunity because it changes so
(05:27):
often and there's so manydifferent parts of Amazon that
you have to be really good at.
And I talk to brands all thetime they go oh, we can just put
the products up and we'll befine.
It's like you have no idea whatit's like to try and deal and
work through the Amazonmarketplace, be able to take
your products from somethingthat's maybe small to something
(05:49):
that's big, or protecting yourbrand, even on Amazon.
So I think it's complicated andpeople don't realize how
complicated it really is.
And so, which leads me to thewhat was this big win?
Because it sounds like you tooksomebody from, and that's a
great story and inspiration foreverybody that listens to the
show.
What was the?
You don't have to tell us theexact brand, but what was this
(06:10):
one where you took it from amillion to, or 3 million to, 24
million?
Hymie Zebede (06:26):
and then I'm saying I'm not trying to brag I
do have a lot of stories wherepeople had very big increases in
sales just because you have tojust check off every box that
you can and amazon will rewardyou.
It's just an algorithm.
So, basically, this company,they had listings, um, you know,
we ranked them nicely, theywere selling, they were selling
very well and it was clothingand they were planning on
(06:47):
letting certain sizes and orcolors go out of stock.
And I said, listen, this isclothing.
It's not like you have one sizeand you can just let it sell
out and all the other sizes willjust continue.
Like normal, amazon looks atevery child's variation.
So if you search a wordwhatever the word is men's
(07:11):
underwear, men's joggers yousearch that word and on Amazon
search results they're showing,even though it looks like
they're showing the full parentin the back end or on the URL.
You'll see one child ASIN isshowing.
It's usually that child ASIN isthe one that's holding that
keyword, so that child ASIN isshowing up on page one.
(07:38):
If you don't have that childASIN, it doesn't mean that
another size or color is justgoing to start showing up on
page one Once you sell out ofthat color slash size, you might
be on page four.
So it's, like, so important tomake sure that you don't sell
out, especially of the MVPs, ofthe children that are ranked for
the best keywords that arebringing in the majority of the
sales.
So I told these guys, we cannotsell out, we must bring it in.
(08:02):
And they were very nervous tobring it in because we had to
ship it in through air, theywould be losing some money.
And I was like guys, thislisting is going to sell
hundreds and hundreds of pieces,400 or 500 units a day.
You can't just let it go out ofstock for three months right
(08:23):
now.
That'll kill everything.
So we aired it in, lost somemoney in the beginning, but the
listing just took off since wedidn't run out, and that
happened over a few differentlistings and it was just.
You know, it's like one of themost important things is just
staying in stock and doingeverything right, because if you
(08:44):
sell out of stock or, like yousaid before, when people just
think they'll just throw thingsup on Amazon and it'll sell, if
you do things wrong from thebeginning, it doesn't mean you
automatically have a secondchance.
Yeah, we'll figure it out later.
Yeah, you could obviously dothe best you can to get back on
track, but you don't know whatyou missed out on by messing up
(09:05):
the honeymoon period or bymessing up that momentum.
I like to think of it as if aguy's running in a race and he
trips.
Yeah, he can get back up andcontinue running, but he just
hurt himself by doing that, yeah, lost a lot of steps.
Adam Shaffer (09:21):
I mean that's great.
So obviously this brand ishappy with with you and you
killed it for them.
Yeah, okay, so you know it'sfunny.
I get a lot of questions and Ikeep kind of track of the
questions I get that are themost popular.
And since you're the Amazonguru when it comes to
advertising and building brandson Amazon, I'm going to ask you
(09:44):
a few and kind of I'd love toget your perspective on these
things.
And the biggest, most importantquestion I think I get from
everybody and I'm not going toask you the should I be on
Amazon or not?
But it's how the heck do I getgood reviews Like what's the
magic?
Is there a silver bullet or isit just a lot of great things?
Hymie Zebede (10:06):
So I wanted to start with you should never do
anything against the rules onAmazon, and when I say that I
mean obviously, like buyingreviews, incentivized reviews.
You should never mess aroundwith that, because Amazon does
not care who you are.
They will suspend you and itdoesn't matter if you're doing.
I know a seller who is doingover $100 million a year when he
(10:28):
got suspended and they don'tcare because the next guy will
just move right up and take thatspot.
So never do anything.
Black hat Reviews is like thenumber one thing Amazon is
looking for.
First of all, I have no problemgetting reviews.
My whole review strategy is ifyou're doing it right, which
(10:50):
means you're brand registered, Iwill enroll it in Vine.
And when I enroll it in Vine,I'll also enroll it in Vine at a
very low price so that I'llmake sure I'm getting as many
good reviews as possible,because even though the Vine
reviewer is getting it for free,he's still leaving the review
based on, you know, for theperson who's shopping.
(11:12):
So if they see something like,wow, it's an amazing deal, it's
definitely worth the money,they're going to give you all
five stars, but if you have one,just pain, just one guy who's
just so annoying, you know, oh,it's okay.
A four-star review like doesn'tcut it, like that's.
You don't want four-starreviews, you want all five-star
reviews, maybe one four.
(11:33):
Okay, then if you get anegative review on Vine, you're
finished.
You just killed your wholelisting.
You're going to need a dozengood reviews to fix that.
I like to enroll it in Vine at alow price, get those 30 reviews
and then I like to keep it at alow price afterwards and
advertise it so that I'm gettinga lot, a lot of sales and then
(11:55):
I'm requesting reviews on everysingle order and there's a lot
of things that go.
You know there's a lot ofbenefits to doing that because
you're also getting, you know,ranked for all the keywords,
because Amazon is seeing allthose conversions.
But yeah, like you shouldn'thave any problem getting reviews
if you're enrolled in Vine at alow price and then you continue
keeping it at that priceafterwards, advertising, and
(12:16):
then Amazon lets you request areview, have the Vine when you
click the order number andthere's extensions.
Also Request reviews on everysingle order.
Adam Shaffer (12:24):
And so obviously getting a five is everything.
I mean, how important isreviews to sales?
Hymie Zebede (12:32):
Reviews are important.
They are not, so they're not.
You don't need thousands ofreviews.
You know sometimes you do, itdepends on the product.
But a lot of people think youneed like thousands and
thousands of reviews to you know, to compete with every
competitor, but you don't like Ihave a lot of listings that are
doing better than mycompetition and I have 200
(12:52):
reviews and they have 3,000reviews.
The most important thing isjust having a good average.
You need to have a four and ahalf star showing and if you get
to a four star, you definitelysee a significant difference in
sales and this helps thealgorithm right.
Adam Shaffer (13:12):
Amazon puts you up higher with this right.
Hymie Zebede (13:17):
It definitely helps the algorithm.
They see a product that peoplelove.
They want to show you more, andthen also things like return
rates.
All those things help thealgorithm.
If they see things that arehighly returned, all the time it
hurts.
That's why they started puttingthat badge also, and then it's
also hurting conversion ratesnow that they see that
(13:38):
frequently returned item.
Adam Shaffer (13:40):
Yeah, no, that's no good, and so that's the worst
.
So I was thinking and I haven'ttalked to you about this before
but do you do anything withinfluencers at all to try and
get reviews, or is that not whatyou do yet?
Hymie Zebede (13:55):
So I not, not really for reviews.
No, because it's a little bitdepending.
I'd be asking them to leave youa review that you're going to
send them a free product.
It could be a little bit risky.
I do send out, I do send outproducts to influencers to make
YouTube videos and TikTok videosand things like that.
(14:16):
Uh, but not to directly buy onAmazon from me and to and to
leave a review.
Just because you know, I'm notsaying it's dangerous, but I, I,
like I said before I, you knowI knew a seller who was doing he
was a top seller doing ahundred million a year and he
got suspended.
So, like I try to keep very,very careful.
Adam Shaffer (14:37):
No, that's good advice.
Okay, good, Well, thank you forthat.
And then another one thatcomes up all the time is you
know, I had this listing and itwas doing great, and then things
just started to slow down.
And you know, do you see, goodlistings go bad?
(14:58):
Is that what happens?
Hymie Zebede (15:00):
I see listings decline all the time.
But there's definitely a reasonfor that, originally when, when
I first started selling one ofmy one of my listings, I saw
that it started getting a littlebit slow.
I'm like you know what.
It's been a slow few weeks, Iguess it's just normal.
Then it just kept getting worseand worse.
I'm like what's going on?
Then I was speaking to my mentorat the time.
(15:21):
He was like Hymie, if you'relosing sales unless it's a
seasonal type of product ifyou're losing sales, that means
that somebody else is takingyour sales.
So basically, I was ranked fora keyword organically and
another guy.
I went down, and another guywent up and took my spot and now
(15:44):
he's getting all the traffic.
And that was before I wastracking keywords.
Now I recommend everybody tracktheir organic keywords and see
what's going on.
If you're losing sales, it'seither you lost organic
placement or there was a keywordthat you were sponsoring or
something that you weresponsoring and you were getting
a lot of sales from it and forsome reason you're not spending
(16:06):
as much on it, or your maybeyour cost per clicks.
Adam Shaffer (16:09):
But on the listing and the organic part of it.
Is it that they need to revamptheir listing to get the word
more words in there, to work ontheir SEO?
What?
What's going on in the listingthat's having them lose the
organic?
Hymie Zebede (16:23):
Sometimes it could be that they need to.
They need to freshen up theirlisting.
Maybe there's new words ordifferent trending phrases that
they should, because the searchvolumes change on different
words and different long tailphrases.
But most of the time what I seeis that they're just not
tracking their keywords.
And there was a keyword theythought okay, I'm getting a lot
(16:44):
of sales, let me just run adsand it'll continue.
But they don't realize thatsomething.
Maybe their ads cannibalizetheir organic placement or
whatever it is.
Maybe just the competitor isconverting better and getting
more sales organically for thatkeyword.
Somebody took their spot andAmazon's not adding another spot
for them.
Amazon, if somebody goes up,somebody needs to go down.
(17:06):
A lot of times it's justthey're not looking at the data.
They're not looking at likewhere are my sales coming?
And usually it's.
You know, if you're looking atfive to 10 keywords max, you
should be able to maintain yourbusiness Like these are the five
, six, seven keywords that I'min the top 10 for I need to make
sure that I'm.
I stay in the top 10.
(17:47):
Yeah, no, that makes, that makessense, and one of the big
issues these days is it seems tome, and it seems to most, that
if you're not spending money onadvertising on Amazon, you're
going to lose share.
But what's your philosophy onadvertising and PPC on Amazon
versus organic?
So when launching a product,you definitely need ads.
Obviously there's someexceptions to the rule where you
could just kill the price anddrive outside traffic, but ads
help so much during thehoneymoon period and during a
launch so that you get shown forso many different keywords and
(18:09):
on other people's listings.
Down the road you might be ableto lower your ads.
On one of my listings, one of mybiggest competitors basically
shut off his ads about sixmonths ago and he's still
killing it.
He's still doing unbelievable,but what he's doing is he's
doing every single lightningdeal and seven-day deal
(18:33):
available, which is a greatstrategy, and also he lowered
his price and added a couponcode.
So there has to be somethingthat you're doing to drive the
sales either lightning deals,7-day deals, more competitive
(18:54):
pricing, something to push it.
I don't think shutting off theads where you have your organic
rank, because sometimes the adswill also catabolize your sales
and all of a sudden it'll hurtthe organic rank.
(19:16):
So I think finding a sweet spotin the middle PPC is important,
but you don't want to relycompletely on it where, all of a
sudden, your ads just shut off.
You run out of budget, that'sit.
Now your sales are gone.
Adam Shaffer (19:28):
But start heavy with a new product and then
moderate over time.
You want to get that cost peracquisition down, I guess, over
time.
But don't stop, don't stop.
But you need to always be doingsomething with regard to PPC on
Amazon, I would think 100%,especially in the beginning.
Hymie Zebede (19:49):
A lot of people they'll say, oh, let me just
spend very little in thebeginning, the first few months,
and they're killing the wholehoneymoon period and they're
spending nothing in thebeginning and down the road.
Now Amazon sees that it's just.
You know what I mean.
It's so important in thebeginning for Amazon to see that
this is a strong listing.
That's why a lot of people willjust put it at a low price in
the beginning, blast it with adsand every single person that's
(20:17):
seeing their ad is like, wow,this is an amazing price, I'm
going to buy it.
And Amazon's seeing an amazingconversion rate and they just
want to show you now foreverything.
Adam Shaffer (20:23):
So what's Hymie's secret sauce for PPC advertising
for success?
Is it more like it's the longtail or is it focusing on a few
words, like when you go into anaccount, what's your thoughts,
how do you attack it?
Hymie Zebede (20:37):
So there's really no set rule.
I do both long tail, Idefinitely do long tail, and I
also do just short.
Main keyword it depends on.
It either has to be making usmoney or improving the rank.
So I'll look at every searchterm that we're advertising on
and I'll see is this profitablefor us?
(20:57):
Are we making money off this?
If we're not making money, itcould still be very useful.
If, of course, you have to betracking your organic keywords
and seeing.
You know what?
We're getting a lot of salesnow from this keyword because
he's advertising it and now wesee it improving.
Last week it was in the 20thspot.
This week it's in the 10th spot.
That that's value.
(21:18):
That means it's worth it tolose money on the edge because
now you're, you're ranking itorganically.
But if you're just spending onsomething and you're not making
money and you're not evenranking the ranks, rank's not
improving.
What's the long-term strategywith that?
It doesn't seem like there's aplan there.
You just spend to make salesthat you're losing on completely
(21:40):
.
Adam Shaffer (21:41):
Do you use software to manage your PPC or
are you doing it all manually?
Hymie Zebede (21:46):
I do use a little bit of software.
I have a custom API where Ichange some bids and things like
that.
Most of it's manual, though Alot of times I like to bulk
create things, bulk create a lotof listings.
You know, single keywordcampaigns, yeah, but I'll use
(22:07):
some softwares and I'll use some, uh google sheets that I built
out, that have like automationtools to just put everything
together nicely.
I don't rely I don't recommendanyone uh rely completely on
software, especially on software.
That's just.
Oh, you know what?
I'm going to get you a low, thelowest ACOS, and because then
(22:29):
they're it'll either slow downthe sales or they're not looking
at the organic rank, like itneeds a manual.
It needs a real life personwith a brain to look at and to
see like, okay, how is thiscampaign affecting everything
else?
And also, a lot of times thelisting will change.
What happens if you were at afour and a half star and then
(22:51):
you got a few bad reviews andnow you went to a four star?
Your ad strategy might totallybe different now.
It doesn't mean it's the samething as it was before.
Let's say, you change yourprice, you adjust your price.
Now you need to adjust your adsEverything.
You have to adjust your adsbased on stock also.
Am I going to sell out, Am Inot?
You have to adjust your adsbased on stock also.
Am I gonna sell out, am I not?
Like there's so many differentthings I don't recommend anyone.
Adam Shaffer (23:14):
So manual is, uh, the old, the old-fashioned way.
I mean, I talked to a lot offolks and they they used to
spend a lot of time usingsoftware.
Now they went back to manual.
So, um, they like, like yousaid, they used, they used the
software a little bit to helpthem organize, but they're going
through every campaign manually, day by day.
So it seems like a winningstrategy to me.
(23:34):
Just a lot of work.
Hymie Zebede (23:37):
Definitely a lot of work, but you can't rely only
on ads.
We're not at that point whereyou need to use your brain a
little bit and see what's goingon.
Adam Shaffer (23:48):
What's your thoughts on off Amazon
advertising?
I mean, I've been seeing offAmazon Google becoming more
important, or am I just beingsold a bill of goods by the new
guys that are out there sellingthis stuff?
Hymie Zebede (24:02):
So with Google, I play around with Google a little
bit.
I like it because when you sendtraffic to listings, even if
there's no sales, it'll help yourank a little bit, just because
Amazon sees that externaltraffic.
(24:23):
But the truth is, if I have alimited ad budget, I would
prefer to spend it on amazon,where the person is ready to buy
something.
A lot of times on google theperson's just looking for
information and things like that, but, like on amazon, that's
where they're buying it.
So I want to.
(24:43):
Unless you have unlimitedbudget, I like to put most of my
money on Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (24:49):
Yeah, I mean.
So Amazon likes off Amazontraffic, so they help with the
ranking, but you're gettinghigher conversion rates on
Amazon with Amazon advertising.
That makes sense, except, Ithink people are trying
everything at this point to tryand get more sales on Amazon,
but they do give you a discount.
From what I understand, ifyou're doing it through your
(25:09):
brand registry, you're the brandowner, I believe you get 10%
off.
Hymie Zebede (25:15):
That can add up also a lot.
Adam Shaffer (25:17):
Yeah, no, it's pretty pretty helpful.
Hymie Zebede (25:20):
I had a person make a Tik TOK video of one of
my listings and it's like anunbelievable video and I'm
spending on that a lot now andit's doing amazing.
Adam Shaffer (25:31):
Really.
Hymie Zebede (25:32):
But also it's because of the content.
It's a great video thatsomebody made.
Adam Shaffer (25:38):
Big one for me.
That's great.
I could use a couple of thoseand then going back, just
staying with the advertising fora second.
So when I think about, first ofall, I hate that you have to
spend money, but you have tospend money in advertising.
And then there's some of thelistings with the keywords that
you're losing money on.
But if you have like asubscribe and save product, I
mean, to me it really comes downto what's going to be the
(25:59):
repeat buy.
You know not that you own allthese customers Amazon kind of
owns them but you could see whatthe repeat is on your products
and that would help me and makeme want to advertise more and
more.
I think I don't know what'syour thoughts on subscribe and
save and advertising on thatstuff.
Hymie Zebede (26:20):
You know what?
I completely didn't mentionthat Great call.
If you're selling an item thatpeople repurchase, that you
could set up a subscribe andsave.
That's another factor, anotherreason why you would want to
lose money in the beginning onthe ads to get that customer,
and now that's it.
Now you have a customer who'srepeatedly purchasing.
So that's yeah, I lovesubscribe and save.
Adam Shaffer (26:40):
So do I.
I mean it's an annuity.
I mean to me, if I was going togo try and find a new product
to sell on Amazon, unless I wasselling gold bars or something.
I think it has to be somethingthat people buy over and over
again.
Hymie Zebede (26:55):
I subscribe and save to all my products that are
subscribable.
Adam Shaffer (27:00):
No, it's great.
Yeah, no, we do too.
No, so pretty interesting, andI think it's a powerful feature
that Amazon has and peopleshould think about that in their
advertising strategy.
So we talked about advertisingand organic, but is there any
way?
I mean, do you know any ofthese brands that are able to
rank in the top five, thataren't spending money or they
(27:23):
could do it all organically, oris that just crap?
Hymie Zebede (27:27):
That aren't spending any money, even through
yeah, even through, like Googleads and things like that.
It's, it's, it's hard right,Very, very hard.
You know you definitely couldget ranked, definitely could get
ranked right, Very, very hard.
You definitely could get ranked, Definitely could get ranked.
But either you're going to haveto spend on ads or I'm in the
(27:57):
middle of the page organically.
I'm sure if I cut my price inhalf, even if I'm losing money
now, all the people that see mein the middle of the page are
going to start to buy me andthen I'll start moving up and up
and up.
I'm saying you're taking moneyfrom one place to another.
Adam Shaffer (28:12):
It's about finding You're spending it anyway.
Yeah, yeah, no, that makessense.
And then there's always theshould I buy my competitors
brand names?
Like you know, that happens ongoogle, happens on amazon, and
if somebody's looking for youknow, I'm going to say I sell a
lot of technology products and Iremember talking to the Epson
(28:33):
people and they have thisreceipt printer and it's really
popular, really well known inthe real world.
But you go on Amazon and youpunch in Epson receipt printer
and it's really popular, reallywell known in the real world.
But you go on Amazon and youpunch in Epson receipt printer
and you'll see 10 other receiptprinters before you get to
theirs, from brands you've neverheard of in your life.
And so should you be buying theEpson brand?
(28:54):
Should Epson be buying theirown brand?
What would your thoughts be?
And I just throw Epson outbecause I remember this
situation where they're, youknow, outside of Amazon, they're
the number one in that area,but inside Amazon there's 10
other guys.
Hymie Zebede (29:11):
Basically like arbitrage, like buying.
Adam Shaffer (29:13):
They're buying the Epson brand.
So you punch in Epson labelprinter or receipt printer and
brands you've never heard ofjust show up and Epson's
somewhere at the bottom.
So they're buying the brandname Epson.
When they buy the keywords,they're buying Epson receipt
printer, Epson printer, Epsonthis.
Hymie Zebede (29:31):
Are you saying four keywords like advertising
on the keywords yeah, oh, I dothat.
Yeah, yeah, I do that all thetime so.
Adam Shaffer (29:39):
So buying a competitor's brand name on ppc
is a is something you should tryor want to try yeah, if you're
comparable, especially if you're, if you're a comparable item
and you're cheaper, for sure.
Hymie Zebede (29:51):
A lot of times I'll even I'm saying it should
be done with big brands and alsosmall brands.
You know, it's very importantto if a lot of times you'll look
at, you'll look at thecompetitors that are selling
well and let's say they havefour stars and you have four and
a half star, you shoulddefinitely be advertising on
their listing.
Or if you see a guy who'sselling, you know selling an
(30:13):
item and you have a very similaritem and you're a couple of
dollars cheaper, for sure,advertise on their listing.
Adam Shaffer (30:20):
Okay, I mean.
So that's good.
I mean, sometimes I see, when Ibuy somebody else's brand, it's
just the cost to acquire is sohigh, because I think they're
really looking for that.
And I get lucky once in a while.
But I think you're right, ifI'm cheaper, if I have better
reviews, maybe I'm going to geta bigger share.
So I think that's pretty goodadvice.
Hymie Zebede (30:41):
It's worth a test.
Worth a test.
If you don't try it out, youwon't know.
Adam Shaffer (30:48):
So give us Hymie's top few reasons or ways to
increase your conversion rate.
I have something that I'mselling on Amazon, but I really
think that I got great trafficbut I'm just not converting
enough.
What are some of your tips andtricks?
What do we do?
Hymie Zebede (31:06):
One of the biggest things is making sure that your
image.
I know everyone says images areso important.
They really are so important.
The customer they can't touchyour product.
They have to see something.
Every image is important.
First of all, you need anamazing main image to improve
the click-through rate so thatwhen people see you in the
(31:27):
search results they're going toclick into your listing.
And then every other image hasto be like so vivid and 3D I
just close up to where they cansee.
You know if you're sellingclothing, they can see the
quality they can like, feel it,basically through the image
where they don't have anyquestions.
And then also the image.
(31:48):
A lot of people go back toclothing.
For example, if your size chart, if you don't have a size chart
, you know it's over and if youhave a size chart, that's a
little bit confusing.
People don't really want towaste their time and start
buying things that they're notsure of.
Like you want to remove anydoubt.
And then if you're selling, youknow, let's say, you're selling
car accessories like you shouldbe putting in fit.
(32:12):
If it's made for a certainthing, you should be fits this
model, this model, this modellike you should be convincing
them and removing any sort ofdoubt from the buyer when
they're on your page.
If they're on your page it'sworth so much money you don't
want to get them off your pagenow.
So if it's waterproof, makesure you have it waterproof in
(32:34):
big letters in the beginning ofthe bullet, in big letters on
the image, whatever it is.
You need to make sure that anyquestion they have about your
listing is answered.
And then to help with theconversion rate, I like playing
around with coupons also,playing around with prices.
Like, let's say I'll add a 5%off clip coupon or I'll adjust
(32:58):
the price or sale price.
I'll look at the conversionrate for like a week straight
and see how is that affecting mylisting.
And also the same thing withthe image.
Let's say I'm changing an image, I'm changing a main image or
I'm changing a secondary imagehow is it affecting my listing?
But the most important thing isto not do everything at the
same time, because if you're notdo everything at the same time,
(33:19):
because if you're changing yourprice at the same time as
you're changing your image, youdon't know what's going on.
You don't know what's improvinganything or what's hurting it.
Adam Shaffer (33:27):
So those are two very big things, do you?
Hymie Zebede (33:36):
do the photography for your clients, or are they
doing it and they're giving youthe content?
So we do all the secondaryimages, uh, lifestyle size chart
, storefront, evc, things likethat.
Um, they send us a main image,a couple main images, and then
we just have our graphicdesigners who make up, you know,
beautiful images from that doyou ever do renderings, or is it
like do you do 3d renderingsand they work out?
Adam Shaffer (33:58):
We do.
Hymie Zebede (33:59):
Yes, it depends on the product, but a lot of times
there'll be great.
Adam Shaffer (34:04):
We started, we started doing that and sometimes
they're better than thephotography.
Yeah, you get that shine tothem and all that you know.
It just looks, it pops, sureCool, so you know, sure, so you
know, is video that important ornot?
Hymie Zebede (34:24):
I mean, I, I love when there's a video, but I just
hate when it doesn't tell meanything exactly if it's, if
it's a product that you're notsure of how to use, or or all
the benefits videos are soimportant.
You know what I mean.
Like you need to have a videoshowing the difference between
you and your competitor, whatyour product has like a certain
feature that other people don'thave, or how to.
(34:45):
You know how easily you knowthis thing opens up.
Like you have to show how, howit is to use.
Um, if it's something likeyou're selling socks, I don't
know if you need a video.
It could be.
It can't hurt having a video.
It depends on the person'sbudget, but some products need
videos.
Like you need a video for thisproduct, some products don't.
Adam Shaffer (35:09):
Have you been doing any of the AB testing that
they do on Amazon?
They let you do new.
Hymie Zebede (35:15):
Most of the AB testing that I do, I do it on
third party websites justbecause I get quicker results
and quicker answers.
So you are testing content.
Adam Shaffer (35:28):
Testing for sure.
Yeah, okay, that's great,that's great, okay.
And then going back to Amazon,do they really care about the
content when they're looking atyour ranking?
We talked about the reviews andwe know they're important, but
is the content important towhere you show up in rankings?
Hymie Zebede (35:47):
Explain content.
What do you mean by content?
Adam Shaffer (35:49):
The images, the video, the words, all that Is
that part of the algorithm Isthat part of the algorithm.
Hymie Zebede (35:57):
First of all, the amount of images you have are
part of the algorithm.
Whether the image is zoomable,part of the algorithm.
Adam Shaffer (36:06):
Oh really, White background.
Hymie Zebede (36:07):
Whether it's zoomable.
Yeah, of course they're lookingat everything, the alt text in
the back of the images, like Ihave a little extension on my
Chrome browser.
I can look at any competitorand see what keywords they're
putting in the back of theimages.
Like I have a little extensionon my Chrome browser I can look
at, like any competitor and see,like what keywords they're
putting in the back of theirimages, supposed to put Spanish
misspellings, things like that.
And yeah, of course they'relooking at all the words that
(36:31):
you have there.
You know long tail, short tail.
They want to see.
That's how the algorithm works.
A lot of thought.
Certain things are hurt thelistings.
Like I've seen html in the, inthe descriptions, hurt the
listings.
Um, people putting a lot ofemojis I've seen that hurt
listings and it doesn't.
(36:53):
It's not like a rule like ifyou put emojis your listing is
gonna get.
But I've seen the bots catch onto some listings that have
emojis and HTML all bold in thebeginning and you know sometimes
the bots will just penalize itand just you know it'll hurt the
rankings and then when you fixthat you'll see all of a sudden
it starts indexing again.
Adam Shaffer (37:15):
Amazing.
So let's talk about just SEO ingeneral.
I know that you used to spendand you still keywords.
They're ranked for in the top10 spots.
Hymie Zebede (37:44):
So I'll use a tool like Helium 10 and I'll just
put in their ASINs and I'll comeup with thousands of words that
they're in the top 10 for, andthen I'll sort by search volume
and then, of course, the highestsearch volume words that
they're ranked very well for,and then, of course, the highest
search volume words thatthey're ranked very well for,
those will go into my title.
The title is the most importantand then after that I'll put
(38:08):
the main keywords in the title.
You have to really craftsomething nice, because you have
to try to put the main keywordin the title, but then you can
try to turn it into a long tail.
The beginning of the long tailis the main keyword.
So, really playing around withall different versions of the
title and then the bullets andputting everything in the right
order.
(38:28):
What I'm trying to accomplish isI'm trying to.
Obviously I don't want it to betoo spammy.
I want there to be readabilityand that the buyer understands
what they're getting and answersany questions.
But I really want amazon'salgorithm to favor me over the
competition and to see okay,this guy has this word over here
in the beginning of the title.
(38:48):
This must be the main thing, orhe has this over here.
He doesn't have these key.
If you're missing keywords, whyare they going to want to show
you?
Adam Shaffer (38:56):
so Makes sense.
Hymie Zebede (38:58):
Yeah, my main thing is really just with the
organic.
Adam Shaffer (39:01):
So I don't want to date this podcast too much, but
we have, although we're kind ofa little bit past the date to
set up your promos.
We have Prime Day coming up inJuly and any words of wisdom for
folks that are going to betrying to increase their sales
during this huge day or days betrying to increase their sales
(39:24):
during this huge day or days.
Hymie Zebede (39:25):
Okay, so we are past the date for setting up
Prime Day deals, lightning dealsand the best deals that was May
3rd but you can still set upPrime exclusive Prime Day deals.
So if you go to Prime exclusivediscounts and then you click
create, it'll say is this aPrime Day deal?
It's a little checkbox and youjust click that.
I recommend everybody does that.
If a lot of people in the pastwere not eligible for the other
(39:49):
type of Prime Day deals, we didthose.
The sales are unbelievable.
So definitely everyone shouldset that up.
If you change your mind laterdown the road, for whatever
reason, you can cancel it.
And there's no fee.
There's no fee for that deal.
There's no, you know, it's freeto run.
So I recommend everyone do that.
And then also, you got to startgetting your goods in.
I don't know the exact dateSometime in June I think it's
(40:14):
maybe mid-June where your goodshave to be sent to Amazon.
So we need to send it.
I don't know when this podcastis going to be published
hopefully before then.
Adam Shaffer (40:27):
But everyone needs to start sending their goods in
to Amazon right away.
Yeah, it sounds like Amazonalso relaxed their new overstock
understock rules.
Is that?
Hymie Zebede (40:35):
am I got that right.
What do you mean by that?
Adam Shaffer (40:37):
Because they have these new rules where they're
going to charge you if you havetoo much and they're going to
charge you if you have toolittle.
It's kind of the Goldilocksprogram.
You got to have it just rightand I think that they just
recently relaxed that it's notgoing to hit yet.
Hymie Zebede (40:51):
I think it's not until later in the year.
Yeah, I don't know the exactdates.
On that, I wasn't really tooupset about that.
People are going to think I'mcrazy, but I think it's so
important for everyone to have agood amount of stock, not
overstocked and not understocked.
If you're understocked, you'rehurting your listing because
Amazon's not going to want toshow you because, first of all,
(41:14):
they're going to see, let's say,you have three weeks worth of
stock or two weeks worth ofstock.
You're not going to be in allthe fulfillment centers.
So somebody in California isgoing to try to buy it and it's
going to say two day shipping.
Some guy in New York is goingto try to buy it.
It's going to say seven dayshipping or 10 day shipping,
like, like I think every.
I was a little bit excited whenI said wow, you know what, and
this will get everyone a littlebit on their feet to make sure
(41:35):
that we have enough stock inamazon.
And then also, people leaveaging inventory in amazon for so
long they think it's like a,just like a storage facility.
No, like, you have aginginventory in amazon, you need to
lower your prices a little bit.
You need to.
You can't just let it sit thereright yeah, but yes, I don't
(41:55):
know the exact dates of how,what dates they pushed it off to
.
There definitely was an updatethat I'm not sure of.
That.
I'm not sure of the exact dates.
Adam Shaffer (42:04):
Well, definitely, I think a lot of people were
nervous about it because it ishard for people to manage it and
I get being understocked.
But I think things like PrimeDay people want to jam inventory
up there and I think peoplewere a little nervous about it.
So hopefully that quelled theirfears and people are going to
ship up there.
So one of my favorite questionsis simply like there's 2
(42:28):
million plus 3P sellers onAmazon today and that's a huge
number.
But I mean there's a smallgroup that make up the you know
kind of the tip of the spear butsay there's 2 million people on
Amazon selling stuff.
Is it too late for somebody tobreak in and sell on Amazon and
(42:48):
be successful, or do you thinkthere's always room?
Hymie Zebede (42:52):
It's definitely not too late.
I want to put it out there thatit's not just an easy passive
income type of business whereeveryone says, throw your stuff
up on Amazon, it's so easy,you'll get rich.
It's not like that.
It's a regular, it's a realbusiness.
It's a real business.
Yep, most businesses fail.
You have to do everything right.
(43:13):
But I'll tell you somethingabout Amazon I've never seen a
way where somebody could soquickly get their product shown
to the world and build up abrand.
It's the easiest time that it'sever been to really build up a
strong brand.
I'm saying because of Amazon,so I love the Amazon model.
(43:36):
It's not easy.
You have to do everything right.
You have to do all the rightthings.
You can't cheapen out by notwanting to run ads.
You can't cheapen out by sayingyou know what?
I can't afford to keep my pricea little bit lower in the
beginning to show Amazon goodconversion rates.
Or cheapen out with gettingcrappy photography.
(43:56):
With getting crappy photography, you need to do the right
things.
But if you do the right things,I really believe you can make
so much money on Amazon and,like you said, so many sellers
keep signing up and starting tosell on Amazon, but also so many
sellers, are losing and closingtheir businesses every year.
(44:17):
It's like a regular business.
It's not too late at year.
It's like a regular business.
It's not too late at all.
Adam Shaffer (44:21):
That's great, that's inspiring to me for sure,
and I'm sure everybody elsethat's listening.
So thanks for that.
And then we're going to startto wrap it up here.
Any other final words of wisdomfor the audience and also a way
that people could reach out toyou if they need your help.
Hymie Zebede (44:41):
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Just search my name, HymieZabede.
You can shoot me over a message.
Connect with me.
We'd love to chat.
I just want to let everyoneknow that it's what we just
spoke about a second ago.
It's so possible to buildsomething strong on Amazon.
Amazon shares so muchinformation with you on where
the sales are coming from, onthe conversion rates of your
(45:03):
competition.
They share so much data withyou that if you really look at
it, or if you have somebody onyour team who could look at
everything closely and do theright things, you could build a
very strong business so quickly.
And yeah, I wish everyone youknow everyone will build up
strong and really focus and, youknow, scale their Amazon
(45:24):
businesses.
And if you need help, if youneed any help, please reach out.
Adam Shaffer (45:28):
Yeah, of course.
Okay, awesome man.
Well, thank you so much.
Really good stuff today.
We can go on forever and talkabout this.
I love this topic and obviouslyyou do too, but time to say
goodbye.
So thanks for joining us todayand I hope to be back with you
soon.
Hymie Zebede (45:43):
Thank you for having me, adam, it's great.
Announcement (45:45):
Take care everyone , thank you for watching another
episode of the Planet Amazonpodcast, where we talk all
things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at ph.
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:17):
Hello everybody and welcome to Planet Amazon,
where we talk about all thingsAmazon.
I'm Adam Schafer and today wehave a great guest.
I want to welcome to thepodcast, Hymie Zebede.
Hey Adam, hey Hymie Zebede.
Who is Hymie Zabidi, by the way?
I'm sure everybody's asking.
Well, Hymie has 12 years ofexperience creating and scaling
(00:38):
brands on Amazon.
com and has a proven trackrecord of creating, launching
individual listings that sellover $1 million a year.
He has a top levelunderstanding of the art and
science of the Amazon.
com algorithm, which Idefinitely want to know more
about, and one of Hymie's bigrecent wins is taking a company
(00:59):
from $3 million a year in salesto over $24 million a year in
sales.
So I definitely want to hearabout that.
Welcome to Planet Amazon, .
Can you tell the audience a bitmore about yourself and how you
got into this crazy game?
Hymie Zebede (01:16):
Sure, adam, thank you for having me here.
I'm very excited.
I started selling on Amazon 12years ago and originally I just
threw up a bunch of things tosee what would work the best,
and a few things really took off.
I started bringing incontainers of it and at that
time I had a middleman bringingthe stuff in for me and I was
(01:40):
living off of it for years.
I bought a house with it.
I made a lot of money from it,thank God.
And then at one point I tried togo direct to import it myself
from China and I had no idea howto do any of that, how to
negotiate with the suppliers andquality control and all those
(02:01):
things.
So I brought in one containercompletely garbage, it was all.
It was all yeah.
And then I brought in a secondcontainer right after that, also
worthless.
I lost a lot of money bringingin my own things, so I was a
little bit fed up with that.
I sold my business, I sold mybrand and and I said you know
(02:24):
what, I know how to build greatsuccessful listings on Amazon.
I don't know anything elseabout negotiating with suppliers
and all that other side of thebusiness.
Let me go to people that knowabout importing goods, that
probably have a lot more moneyand a lot more inventory than me
and let me show them how toreally scale on Amazon.
(02:46):
And I would go up to them andtell them listen, look at my
sales last year.
Look at your sales.
I'm a nobody and I'm beatingyou up.
Look at my sales.
It's so much more than you.
Let's see what I could do foryou and built up some successful
listings for people.
Word spread oh, Hymie made thislisting, Hymie made that.
And then I just startedfull-time managing accounts,
(03:08):
scaling businesses on Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (03:11):
It's funny.
I thought you were going to sayyou cracked the code on
bringing stuff in from Asia, andit's actually not.
You got fed up with it and youfocused on what you're really
good at, so that's good to hear.
Not everybody can say that andyou really saw your niche was
helping people sell on Amazonnot necessarily.
You know building product andbringing it in from overseas, so
(03:32):
that's awesome.
Hymie Zebede (03:34):
Yeah, I think it's a whole different business.
You know, like you got toreally focus on something that
you do well and do it the bestthat you can hey.
Adam Shaffer (03:43):
so you got to tell me, because I haven't ever
cracked the code on it.
But what is the art and scienceof the amazon.
com algorithm?
Isn't it always changing?
How do you figure this thingout, man?
Hymie Zebede (03:57):
So it is always changing.
It changed a lot since when Ifirst started.
It used to be much easier youjust throw something up there
and it would basically sell onits own, even if the pictures
are garbage or it was missingall the right keywords.
Nowadays you really need tostep up your game.
I'm in all different types ofmasterminds and watching
(04:17):
constantly YouTubes and podcastsand looking up online all the
different changes that Amazonmakes.
A lot of times they'll makechanges, very frequently.
They'll make changes and theydon't tell anybody about it
because they don't like to sharetheir algorithm, but really
just staying in the business andseeing what's going on and you
(04:40):
really have to do everything thebest that you can.
You need amazing images.
You need to have all thekeywords everywhere the title,
the bullets, keywords, backend.
You need to make sure thatyou're looking at your
conversion rate, yourclick-through rate.
There's so many things thatneed to be.
It used to be.
You could do maybe two out ofthe five things.
Now you need to do every singleone of those five things
(05:01):
perfectly if you really want tobuild it.
You know, yeah, no that makessense.
Adam Shaffer (05:05):
I mean, what's funny is what you're saying is
true.
I mean Amazon.
If you're not in it every dayand you're not part of the
communities and listening andlearning and reading Amazon will
take off and take away from you.
You'll get lost in the abyss.
You need to be connected to acommunity because it changes so
(05:27):
often and there's so manydifferent parts of Amazon that
you have to be really good at.
And I talk to brands all thetime they go oh, we can just put
the products up and we'll befine.
It's like you have no idea whatit's like to try and deal and
work through the Amazonmarketplace, be able to take
your products from somethingthat's maybe small to something
(05:49):
that's big, or protecting yourbrand, even on Amazon.
So I think it's complicated andpeople don't realize how
complicated it really is.
And so, which leads me to thewhat was this big win?
Because it sounds like you tooksomebody from, and that's a
great story and inspiration foreverybody that listens to the
show.
What was the?
You don't have to tell us theexact brand, but what was this
(06:10):
one where you took it from amillion to, or 3 million to, 24
million?
Hymie Zebede (06:26):
and then I'm saying I'm not trying to brag I
do have a lot of stories wherepeople had very big increases in
sales just because you have tojust check off every box that
you can and amazon will rewardyou.
It's just an algorithm.
So, basically, this company,they had listings, um, you know,
we ranked them nicely, theywere selling, they were selling
very well and it was clothingand they were planning on
(06:47):
letting certain sizes and orcolors go out of stock.
And I said, listen, this isclothing.
It's not like you have one sizeand you can just let it sell
out and all the other sizes willjust continue.
Like normal, amazon looks atevery child's variation.
So if you search a wordwhatever the word is men's
(07:11):
underwear, men's joggers yousearch that word and on Amazon
search results they're showing,even though it looks like
they're showing the full parentin the back end or on the URL.
You'll see one child ASIN isshowing.
It's usually that child ASIN isthe one that's holding that
keyword, so that child ASIN isshowing up on page one.
(07:38):
If you don't have that childASIN, it doesn't mean that
another size or color is justgoing to start showing up on
page one Once you sell out ofthat color slash size, you might
be on page four.
So it's, like, so important tomake sure that you don't sell
out, especially of the MVPs, ofthe children that are ranked for
the best keywords that arebringing in the majority of the
sales.
So I told these guys, we cannotsell out, we must bring it in.
(08:02):
And they were very nervous tobring it in because we had to
ship it in through air, theywould be losing some money.
And I was like guys, thislisting is going to sell
hundreds and hundreds of pieces,400 or 500 units a day.
You can't just let it go out ofstock for three months right
(08:23):
now.
That'll kill everything.
So we aired it in, lost somemoney in the beginning, but the
listing just took off since wedidn't run out, and that
happened over a few differentlistings and it was just.
You know, it's like one of themost important things is just
staying in stock and doingeverything right, because if you
(08:44):
sell out of stock or, like yousaid before, when people just
think they'll just throw thingsup on Amazon and it'll sell, if
you do things wrong from thebeginning, it doesn't mean you
automatically have a secondchance.
Yeah, we'll figure it out later.
Yeah, you could obviously dothe best you can to get back on
track, but you don't know whatyou missed out on by messing up
(09:05):
the honeymoon period or bymessing up that momentum.
I like to think of it as if aguy's running in a race and he
trips.
Yeah, he can get back up andcontinue running, but he just
hurt himself by doing that, yeah, lost a lot of steps.
Adam Shaffer (09:21):
I mean that's great.
So obviously this brand ishappy with with you and you
killed it for them.
Yeah, okay, so you know it'sfunny.
I get a lot of questions and Ikeep kind of track of the
questions I get that are themost popular.
And since you're the Amazonguru when it comes to
advertising and building brandson Amazon, I'm going to ask you
(09:44):
a few and kind of I'd love toget your perspective on these
things.
And the biggest, most importantquestion I think I get from
everybody and I'm not going toask you the should I be on
Amazon or not?
But it's how the heck do I getgood reviews Like what's the
magic?
Is there a silver bullet or isit just a lot of great things?
Hymie Zebede (10:06):
So I wanted to start with you should never do
anything against the rules onAmazon, and when I say that I
mean obviously, like buyingreviews, incentivized reviews.
You should never mess aroundwith that, because Amazon does
not care who you are.
They will suspend you and itdoesn't matter if you're doing.
I know a seller who is doingover $100 million a year when he
(10:28):
got suspended and they don'tcare because the next guy will
just move right up and take thatspot.
So never do anything.
Black hat Reviews is like thenumber one thing Amazon is
looking for.
First of all, I have no problemgetting reviews.
My whole review strategy is ifyou're doing it right, which
(10:50):
means you're brand registered, Iwill enroll it in Vine.
And when I enroll it in Vine,I'll also enroll it in Vine at a
very low price so that I'llmake sure I'm getting as many
good reviews as possible,because even though the Vine
reviewer is getting it for free,he's still leaving the review
based on, you know, for theperson who's shopping.
(11:12):
So if they see something like,wow, it's an amazing deal, it's
definitely worth the money,they're going to give you all
five stars, but if you have one,just pain, just one guy who's
just so annoying, you know, oh,it's okay.
A four-star review like doesn'tcut it, like that's.
You don't want four-starreviews, you want all five-star
reviews, maybe one four.
(11:33):
Okay, then if you get anegative review on Vine, you're
finished.
You just killed your wholelisting.
You're going to need a dozengood reviews to fix that.
I like to enroll it in Vine at alow price, get those 30 reviews
and then I like to keep it at alow price afterwards and
advertise it so that I'm gettinga lot, a lot of sales and then
(11:55):
I'm requesting reviews on everysingle order and there's a lot
of things that go.
You know there's a lot ofbenefits to doing that because
you're also getting, you know,ranked for all the keywords,
because Amazon is seeing allthose conversions.
But yeah, like you shouldn'thave any problem getting reviews
if you're enrolled in Vine at alow price and then you continue
keeping it at that priceafterwards, advertising, and
(12:16):
then Amazon lets you request areview, have the Vine when you
click the order number andthere's extensions.
Also Request reviews on everysingle order.
Adam Shaffer (12:24):
And so obviously getting a five is everything.
I mean, how important isreviews to sales?
Hymie Zebede (12:32):
Reviews are important.
They are not, so they're not.
You don't need thousands ofreviews.
You know sometimes you do, itdepends on the product.
But a lot of people think youneed like thousands and
thousands of reviews to you know, to compete with every
competitor, but you don't like Ihave a lot of listings that are
doing better than mycompetition and I have 200
(12:52):
reviews and they have 3,000reviews.
The most important thing isjust having a good average.
You need to have a four and ahalf star showing and if you get
to a four star, you definitelysee a significant difference in
sales and this helps thealgorithm right.
Adam Shaffer (13:12):
Amazon puts you up higher with this right.
Hymie Zebede (13:17):
It definitely helps the algorithm.
They see a product that peoplelove.
They want to show you more, andthen also things like return
rates.
All those things help thealgorithm.
If they see things that arehighly returned, all the time it
hurts.
That's why they started puttingthat badge also, and then it's
also hurting conversion ratesnow that they see that
(13:38):
frequently returned item.
Adam Shaffer (13:40):
Yeah, no, that's no good, and so that's the worst
.
So I was thinking and I haven'ttalked to you about this before
but do you do anything withinfluencers at all to try and
get reviews, or is that not whatyou do yet?
Hymie Zebede (13:55):
So I not, not really for reviews.
No, because it's a little bitdepending.
I'd be asking them to leave youa review that you're going to
send them a free product.
It could be a little bit risky.
I do send out, I do send outproducts to influencers to make
YouTube videos and TikTok videosand things like that.
(14:16):
Uh, but not to directly buy onAmazon from me and to and to
leave a review.
Just because you know, I'm notsaying it's dangerous, but I, I,
like I said before I, you knowI knew a seller who was doing he
was a top seller doing ahundred million a year and he
got suspended.
So, like I try to keep very,very careful.
Adam Shaffer (14:37):
No, that's good advice.
Okay, good, Well, thank you forthat.
And then another one thatcomes up all the time is you
know, I had this listing and itwas doing great, and then things
just started to slow down.
And you know, do you see, goodlistings go bad?
(14:58):
Is that what happens?
Hymie Zebede (15:00):
I see listings decline all the time.
But there's definitely a reasonfor that, originally when, when
I first started selling one ofmy one of my listings, I saw
that it started getting a littlebit slow.
I'm like you know what.
It's been a slow few weeks, Iguess it's just normal.
Then it just kept getting worseand worse.
I'm like what's going on?
Then I was speaking to my mentorat the time.
(15:21):
He was like Hymie, if you'relosing sales unless it's a
seasonal type of product ifyou're losing sales, that means
that somebody else is takingyour sales.
So basically, I was ranked fora keyword organically and
another guy.
I went down, and another guywent up and took my spot and now
(15:44):
he's getting all the traffic.
And that was before I wastracking keywords.
Now I recommend everybody tracktheir organic keywords and see
what's going on.
If you're losing sales, it'seither you lost organic
placement or there was a keywordthat you were sponsoring or
something that you weresponsoring and you were getting
a lot of sales from it and forsome reason you're not spending
(16:06):
as much on it, or your maybeyour cost per clicks.
Adam Shaffer (16:09):
But on the listing and the organic part of it.
Is it that they need to revamptheir listing to get the word
more words in there, to work ontheir SEO?
What?
What's going on in the listingthat's having them lose the
organic?
Hymie Zebede (16:23):
Sometimes it could be that they need to.
They need to freshen up theirlisting.
Maybe there's new words ordifferent trending phrases that
they should, because the searchvolumes change on different
words and different long tailphrases.
But most of the time what I seeis that they're just not
tracking their keywords.
And there was a keyword theythought okay, I'm getting a lot
(16:44):
of sales, let me just run adsand it'll continue.
But they don't realize thatsomething.
Maybe their ads cannibalizetheir organic placement or
whatever it is.
Maybe just the competitor isconverting better and getting
more sales organically for thatkeyword.
Somebody took their spot andAmazon's not adding another spot
for them.
Amazon, if somebody goes up,somebody needs to go down.
(17:06):
A lot of times it's justthey're not looking at the data.
They're not looking at likewhere are my sales coming?
And usually it's.
You know, if you're looking atfive to 10 keywords max, you
should be able to maintain yourbusiness Like these are the five
, six, seven keywords that I'min the top 10 for I need to make
sure that I'm.
I stay in the top 10.
(17:47):
Yeah, no, that makes, that makessense, and one of the big
issues these days is it seems tome, and it seems to most, that
if you're not spending money onadvertising on Amazon, you're
going to lose share.
But what's your philosophy onadvertising and PPC on Amazon
versus organic?
So when launching a product,you definitely need ads.
Obviously there's someexceptions to the rule where you
could just kill the price anddrive outside traffic, but ads
help so much during thehoneymoon period and during a
launch so that you get shown forso many different keywords and
(18:09):
on other people's listings.
Down the road you might be ableto lower your ads.
On one of my listings, one of mybiggest competitors basically
shut off his ads about sixmonths ago and he's still
killing it.
He's still doing unbelievable,but what he's doing is he's
doing every single lightningdeal and seven-day deal
(18:33):
available, which is a greatstrategy, and also he lowered
his price and added a couponcode.
So there has to be somethingthat you're doing to drive the
sales either lightning deals,7-day deals, more competitive
(18:54):
pricing, something to push it.
I don't think shutting off theads where you have your organic
rank, because sometimes the adswill also catabolize your sales
and all of a sudden it'll hurtthe organic rank.
(19:16):
So I think finding a sweet spotin the middle PPC is important,
but you don't want to relycompletely on it where, all of a
sudden, your ads just shut off.
You run out of budget, that'sit.
Now your sales are gone.
Adam Shaffer (19:28):
But start heavy with a new product and then
moderate over time.
You want to get that cost peracquisition down, I guess, over
time.
But don't stop, don't stop.
But you need to always be doingsomething with regard to PPC on
Amazon, I would think 100%,especially in the beginning.
Hymie Zebede (19:49):
A lot of people they'll say, oh, let me just
spend very little in thebeginning, the first few months,
and they're killing the wholehoneymoon period and they're
spending nothing in thebeginning and down the road.
Now Amazon sees that it's just.
You know what I mean.
It's so important in thebeginning for Amazon to see that
this is a strong listing.
That's why a lot of people willjust put it at a low price in
the beginning, blast it with adsand every single person that's
(20:17):
seeing their ad is like, wow,this is an amazing price, I'm
going to buy it.
And Amazon's seeing an amazingconversion rate and they just
want to show you now foreverything.
Adam Shaffer (20:23):
So what's Hymie's secret sauce for PPC advertising
for success?
Is it more like it's the longtail or is it focusing on a few
words, like when you go into anaccount, what's your thoughts,
how do you attack it?
Hymie Zebede (20:37):
So there's really no set rule.
I do both long tail, Idefinitely do long tail, and I
also do just short.
Main keyword it depends on.
It either has to be making usmoney or improving the rank.
So I'll look at every searchterm that we're advertising on
and I'll see is this profitablefor us?
(20:57):
Are we making money off this?
If we're not making money, itcould still be very useful.
If, of course, you have to betracking your organic keywords
and seeing.
You know what?
We're getting a lot of salesnow from this keyword because
he's advertising it and now wesee it improving.
Last week it was in the 20thspot.
This week it's in the 10th spot.
That that's value.
(21:18):
That means it's worth it tolose money on the edge because
now you're, you're ranking itorganically.
But if you're just spending onsomething and you're not making
money and you're not evenranking the ranks, rank's not
improving.
What's the long-term strategywith that?
It doesn't seem like there's aplan there.
You just spend to make salesthat you're losing on completely
(21:40):
.
Adam Shaffer (21:41):
Do you use software to manage your PPC or
are you doing it all manually?
Hymie Zebede (21:46):
I do use a little bit of software.
I have a custom API where Ichange some bids and things like
that.
Most of it's manual, though Alot of times I like to bulk
create things, bulk create a lotof listings.
You know, single keywordcampaigns, yeah, but I'll use
(22:07):
some softwares and I'll use some, uh google sheets that I built
out, that have like automationtools to just put everything
together nicely.
I don't rely I don't recommendanyone uh rely completely on
software, especially on software.
That's just.
Oh, you know what?
I'm going to get you a low, thelowest ACOS, and because then
(22:29):
they're it'll either slow downthe sales or they're not looking
at the organic rank, like itneeds a manual.
It needs a real life personwith a brain to look at and to
see like, okay, how is thiscampaign affecting everything
else?
And also, a lot of times thelisting will change.
What happens if you were at afour and a half star and then
(22:51):
you got a few bad reviews andnow you went to a four star?
Your ad strategy might totallybe different now.
It doesn't mean it's the samething as it was before.
Let's say, you change yourprice, you adjust your price.
Now you need to adjust your adsEverything.
You have to adjust your adsbased on stock also.
Am I going to sell out, Am Inot?
You have to adjust your adsbased on stock also.
Am I gonna sell out, am I not?
Like there's so many differentthings I don't recommend anyone.
Adam Shaffer (23:14):
So manual is, uh, the old, the old-fashioned way.
I mean, I talked to a lot offolks and they they used to
spend a lot of time usingsoftware.
Now they went back to manual.
So, um, they like, like yousaid, they used, they used the
software a little bit to helpthem organize, but they're going
through every campaign manually, day by day.
So it seems like a winningstrategy to me.
(23:34):
Just a lot of work.
Hymie Zebede (23:37):
Definitely a lot of work, but you can't rely only
on ads.
We're not at that point whereyou need to use your brain a
little bit and see what's goingon.
Adam Shaffer (23:48):
What's your thoughts on off Amazon
advertising?
I mean, I've been seeing offAmazon Google becoming more
important, or am I just beingsold a bill of goods by the new
guys that are out there sellingthis stuff?
Hymie Zebede (24:02):
So with Google, I play around with Google a little
bit.
I like it because when you sendtraffic to listings, even if
there's no sales, it'll help yourank a little bit, just because
Amazon sees that externaltraffic.
(24:23):
But the truth is, if I have alimited ad budget, I would
prefer to spend it on amazon,where the person is ready to buy
something.
A lot of times on google theperson's just looking for
information and things like that, but, like on amazon, that's
where they're buying it.
So I want to.
(24:43):
Unless you have unlimitedbudget, I like to put most of my
money on Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (24:49):
Yeah, I mean.
So Amazon likes off Amazontraffic, so they help with the
ranking, but you're gettinghigher conversion rates on
Amazon with Amazon advertising.
That makes sense, except, Ithink people are trying
everything at this point to tryand get more sales on Amazon,
but they do give you a discount.
From what I understand, ifyou're doing it through your
(25:09):
brand registry, you're the brandowner, I believe you get 10%
off.
Hymie Zebede (25:15):
That can add up also a lot.
Adam Shaffer (25:17):
Yeah, no, it's pretty pretty helpful.
Hymie Zebede (25:20):
I had a person make a Tik TOK video of one of
my listings and it's like anunbelievable video and I'm
spending on that a lot now andit's doing amazing.
Adam Shaffer (25:31):
Really.
Hymie Zebede (25:32):
But also it's because of the content.
It's a great video thatsomebody made.
Adam Shaffer (25:38):
Big one for me.
That's great.
I could use a couple of thoseand then going back, just
staying with the advertising fora second.
So when I think about, first ofall, I hate that you have to
spend money, but you have tospend money in advertising.
And then there's some of thelistings with the keywords that
you're losing money on.
But if you have like asubscribe and save product, I
mean, to me it really comes downto what's going to be the
(25:59):
repeat buy.
You know not that you own allthese customers Amazon kind of
owns them but you could see whatthe repeat is on your products
and that would help me and makeme want to advertise more and
more.
I think I don't know what'syour thoughts on subscribe and
save and advertising on thatstuff.
Hymie Zebede (26:20):
You know what?
I completely didn't mentionthat Great call.
If you're selling an item thatpeople repurchase, that you
could set up a subscribe andsave.
That's another factor, anotherreason why you would want to
lose money in the beginning onthe ads to get that customer,
and now that's it.
Now you have a customer who'srepeatedly purchasing.
So that's yeah, I lovesubscribe and save.
Adam Shaffer (26:40):
So do I.
I mean it's an annuity.
I mean to me, if I was going togo try and find a new product
to sell on Amazon, unless I wasselling gold bars or something.
I think it has to be somethingthat people buy over and over
again.
Hymie Zebede (26:55):
I subscribe and save to all my products that are
subscribable.
Adam Shaffer (27:00):
No, it's great.
Yeah, no, we do too.
No, so pretty interesting, andI think it's a powerful feature
that Amazon has and peopleshould think about that in their
advertising strategy.
So we talked about advertisingand organic, but is there any
way?
I mean, do you know any ofthese brands that are able to
rank in the top five, thataren't spending money or they
(27:23):
could do it all organically, oris that just crap?
Hymie Zebede (27:27):
That aren't spending any money, even through
yeah, even through, like Googleads and things like that.
It's, it's, it's hard right,Very, very hard.
You know you definitely couldget ranked, definitely could get
ranked right, Very, very hard.
You definitely could get ranked, Definitely could get ranked.
But either you're going to haveto spend on ads or I'm in the
(27:57):
middle of the page organically.
I'm sure if I cut my price inhalf, even if I'm losing money
now, all the people that see mein the middle of the page are
going to start to buy me andthen I'll start moving up and up
and up.
I'm saying you're taking moneyfrom one place to another.
Adam Shaffer (28:12):
It's about finding You're spending it anyway.
Yeah, yeah, no, that makessense.
And then there's always theshould I buy my competitors
brand names?
Like you know, that happens ongoogle, happens on amazon, and
if somebody's looking for youknow, I'm going to say I sell a
lot of technology products and Iremember talking to the Epson
(28:33):
people and they have thisreceipt printer and it's really
popular, really well known inthe real world.
But you go on Amazon and youpunch in Epson receipt printer
and it's really popular, reallywell known in the real world.
But you go on Amazon and youpunch in Epson receipt printer
and you'll see 10 other receiptprinters before you get to
theirs, from brands you've neverheard of in your life.
And so should you be buying theEpson brand?
(28:54):
Should Epson be buying theirown brand?
What would your thoughts be?
And I just throw Epson outbecause I remember this
situation where they're, youknow, outside of Amazon, they're
the number one in that area,but inside Amazon there's 10
other guys.
Hymie Zebede (29:11):
Basically like arbitrage, like buying.
Adam Shaffer (29:13):
They're buying the Epson brand.
So you punch in Epson labelprinter or receipt printer and
brands you've never heard ofjust show up and Epson's
somewhere at the bottom.
So they're buying the brandname Epson.
When they buy the keywords,they're buying Epson receipt
printer, Epson printer, Epsonthis.
Hymie Zebede (29:31):
Are you saying four keywords like advertising
on the keywords yeah, oh, I dothat.
Yeah, yeah, I do that all thetime so.
Adam Shaffer (29:39):
So buying a competitor's brand name on ppc
is a is something you should tryor want to try yeah, if you're
comparable, especially if you're, if you're a comparable item
and you're cheaper, for sure.
Hymie Zebede (29:51):
A lot of times I'll even I'm saying it should
be done with big brands and alsosmall brands.
You know, it's very importantto if a lot of times you'll look
at, you'll look at thecompetitors that are selling
well and let's say they havefour stars and you have four and
a half star, you shoulddefinitely be advertising on
their listing.
Or if you see a guy who'sselling, you know selling an
(30:13):
item and you have a very similaritem and you're a couple of
dollars cheaper, for sure,advertise on their listing.
Adam Shaffer (30:20):
Okay, I mean.
So that's good.
I mean, sometimes I see, when Ibuy somebody else's brand, it's
just the cost to acquire is sohigh, because I think they're
really looking for that.
And I get lucky once in a while.
But I think you're right, ifI'm cheaper, if I have better
reviews, maybe I'm going to geta bigger share.
So I think that's pretty goodadvice.
Hymie Zebede (30:41):
It's worth a test.
Worth a test.
If you don't try it out, youwon't know.
Adam Shaffer (30:48):
So give us Hymie's top few reasons or ways to
increase your conversion rate.
I have something that I'mselling on Amazon, but I really
think that I got great trafficbut I'm just not converting
enough.
What are some of your tips andtricks?
What do we do?
Hymie Zebede (31:06):
One of the biggest things is making sure that your
image.
I know everyone says images areso important.
They really are so important.
The customer they can't touchyour product.
They have to see something.
Every image is important.
First of all, you need anamazing main image to improve
the click-through rate so thatwhen people see you in the
(31:27):
search results they're going toclick into your listing.
And then every other image hasto be like so vivid and 3D I
just close up to where they cansee.
You know if you're sellingclothing, they can see the
quality they can like, feel it,basically through the image
where they don't have anyquestions.
And then also the image.
(31:48):
A lot of people go back toclothing.
For example, if your size chart, if you don't have a size chart
, you know it's over and if youhave a size chart, that's a
little bit confusing.
People don't really want towaste their time and start
buying things that they're notsure of.
Like you want to remove anydoubt.
And then if you're selling, youknow, let's say, you're selling
car accessories like you shouldbe putting in fit.
(32:12):
If it's made for a certainthing, you should be fits this
model, this model, this modellike you should be convincing
them and removing any sort ofdoubt from the buyer when
they're on your page.
If they're on your page it'sworth so much money you don't
want to get them off your pagenow.
So if it's waterproof, makesure you have it waterproof in
(32:34):
big letters in the beginning ofthe bullet, in big letters on
the image, whatever it is.
You need to make sure that anyquestion they have about your
listing is answered.
And then to help with theconversion rate, I like playing
around with coupons also,playing around with prices.
Like, let's say I'll add a 5%off clip coupon or I'll adjust
(32:58):
the price or sale price.
I'll look at the conversionrate for like a week straight
and see how is that affecting mylisting.
And also the same thing withthe image.
Let's say I'm changing an image, I'm changing a main image or
I'm changing a secondary imagehow is it affecting my listing?
But the most important thing isto not do everything at the
same time, because if you're notdo everything at the same time,
(33:19):
because if you're changing yourprice at the same time as
you're changing your image, youdon't know what's going on.
You don't know what's improvinganything or what's hurting it.
Adam Shaffer (33:27):
So those are two very big things, do you?
Hymie Zebede (33:36):
do the photography for your clients, or are they
doing it and they're giving youthe content?
So we do all the secondaryimages, uh, lifestyle size chart
, storefront, evc, things likethat.
Um, they send us a main image,a couple main images, and then
we just have our graphicdesigners who make up, you know,
beautiful images from that doyou ever do renderings, or is it
like do you do 3d renderingsand they work out?
Adam Shaffer (33:58):
We do.
Hymie Zebede (33:59):
Yes, it depends on the product, but a lot of times
there'll be great.
Adam Shaffer (34:04):
We started, we started doing that and sometimes
they're better than thephotography.
Yeah, you get that shine tothem and all that you know.
It just looks, it pops, sureCool, so you know, sure, so you
know, is video that important ornot?
Hymie Zebede (34:24):
I mean, I, I love when there's a video, but I just
hate when it doesn't tell meanything exactly if it's, if
it's a product that you're notsure of how to use, or or all
the benefits videos are soimportant.
You know what I mean.
Like you need to have a videoshowing the difference between
you and your competitor, whatyour product has like a certain
feature that other people don'thave, or how to.
(34:45):
You know how easily you knowthis thing opens up.
Like you have to show how, howit is to use.
Um, if it's something likeyou're selling socks, I don't
know if you need a video.
It could be.
It can't hurt having a video.
It depends on the person'sbudget, but some products need
videos.
Like you need a video for thisproduct, some products don't.
Adam Shaffer (35:09):
Have you been doing any of the AB testing that
they do on Amazon?
They let you do new.
Hymie Zebede (35:15):
Most of the AB testing that I do, I do it on
third party websites justbecause I get quicker results
and quicker answers.
So you are testing content.
Adam Shaffer (35:28):
Testing for sure.
Yeah, okay, that's great,that's great, okay.
And then going back to Amazon,do they really care about the
content when they're looking atyour ranking?
We talked about the reviews andwe know they're important, but
is the content important towhere you show up in rankings?
Hymie Zebede (35:47):
Explain content.
What do you mean by content?
Adam Shaffer (35:49):
The images, the video, the words, all that Is
that part of the algorithm Isthat part of the algorithm.
Hymie Zebede (35:57):
First of all, the amount of images you have are
part of the algorithm.
Whether the image is zoomable,part of the algorithm.
Adam Shaffer (36:06):
Oh really, White background.
Hymie Zebede (36:07):
Whether it's zoomable.
Yeah, of course they're lookingat everything, the alt text in
the back of the images, like Ihave a little extension on my
Chrome browser.
I can look at any competitorand see what keywords they're
putting in the back of theimages.
Like I have a little extensionon my Chrome browser I can look
at, like any competitor and see,like what keywords they're
putting in the back of theirimages, supposed to put Spanish
misspellings, things like that.
And yeah, of course they'relooking at all the words that
(36:31):
you have there.
You know long tail, short tail.
They want to see.
That's how the algorithm works.
A lot of thought.
Certain things are hurt thelistings.
Like I've seen html in the, inthe descriptions, hurt the
listings.
Um, people putting a lot ofemojis I've seen that hurt
listings and it doesn't.
(36:53):
It's not like a rule like ifyou put emojis your listing is
gonna get.
But I've seen the bots catch onto some listings that have
emojis and HTML all bold in thebeginning and you know sometimes
the bots will just penalize itand just you know it'll hurt the
rankings and then when you fixthat you'll see all of a sudden
it starts indexing again.
Adam Shaffer (37:15):
Amazing.
So let's talk about just SEO ingeneral.
I know that you used to spendand you still keywords.
They're ranked for in the top10 spots.
Hymie Zebede (37:44):
So I'll use a tool like Helium 10 and I'll just
put in their ASINs and I'll comeup with thousands of words that
they're in the top 10 for, andthen I'll sort by search volume
and then, of course, the highestsearch volume words that
they're ranked very well for,and then, of course, the highest
search volume words thatthey're ranked very well for,
those will go into my title.
The title is the most importantand then after that I'll put
(38:08):
the main keywords in the title.
You have to really craftsomething nice, because you have
to try to put the main keywordin the title, but then you can
try to turn it into a long tail.
The beginning of the long tailis the main keyword.
So, really playing around withall different versions of the
title and then the bullets andputting everything in the right
order.
(38:28):
What I'm trying to accomplish isI'm trying to.
Obviously I don't want it to betoo spammy.
I want there to be readabilityand that the buyer understands
what they're getting and answersany questions.
But I really want amazon'salgorithm to favor me over the
competition and to see okay,this guy has this word over here
in the beginning of the title.
(38:48):
This must be the main thing, orhe has this over here.
He doesn't have these key.
If you're missing keywords, whyare they going to want to show
you?
Adam Shaffer (38:56):
so Makes sense.
Hymie Zebede (38:58):
Yeah, my main thing is really just with the
organic.
Adam Shaffer (39:01):
So I don't want to date this podcast too much, but
we have, although we're kind ofa little bit past the date to
set up your promos.
We have Prime Day coming up inJuly and any words of wisdom for
folks that are going to betrying to increase their sales
during this huge day or days betrying to increase their sales
(39:24):
during this huge day or days.
Hymie Zebede (39:25):
Okay, so we are past the date for setting up
Prime Day deals, lightning dealsand the best deals that was May
3rd but you can still set upPrime exclusive Prime Day deals.
So if you go to Prime exclusivediscounts and then you click
create, it'll say is this aPrime Day deal?
It's a little checkbox and youjust click that.
I recommend everybody does that.
If a lot of people in the pastwere not eligible for the other
(39:49):
type of Prime Day deals, we didthose.
The sales are unbelievable.
So definitely everyone shouldset that up.
If you change your mind laterdown the road, for whatever
reason, you can cancel it.
And there's no fee.
There's no fee for that deal.
There's no, you know, it's freeto run.
So I recommend everyone do that.
And then also, you got to startgetting your goods in.
I don't know the exact dateSometime in June I think it's
(40:14):
maybe mid-June where your goodshave to be sent to Amazon.
So we need to send it.
I don't know when this podcastis going to be published
hopefully before then.
Adam Shaffer (40:27):
But everyone needs to start sending their goods in
to Amazon right away.
Yeah, it sounds like Amazonalso relaxed their new overstock
understock rules.
Is that?
Hymie Zebede (40:35):
am I got that right.
What do you mean by that?
Adam Shaffer (40:37):
Because they have these new rules where they're
going to charge you if you havetoo much and they're going to
charge you if you have toolittle.
It's kind of the Goldilocksprogram.
You got to have it just rightand I think that they just
recently relaxed that it's notgoing to hit yet.
Hymie Zebede (40:51):
I think it's not until later in the year.
Yeah, I don't know the exactdates.
On that, I wasn't really tooupset about that.
People are going to think I'mcrazy, but I think it's so
important for everyone to have agood amount of stock, not
overstocked and not understocked.
If you're understocked, you'rehurting your listing because
Amazon's not going to want toshow you because, first of all,
(41:14):
they're going to see, let's say,you have three weeks worth of
stock or two weeks worth ofstock.
You're not going to be in allthe fulfillment centers.
So somebody in California isgoing to try to buy it and it's
going to say two day shipping.
Some guy in New York is goingto try to buy it.
It's going to say seven dayshipping or 10 day shipping,
like, like I think every.
I was a little bit excited whenI said wow, you know what, and
this will get everyone a littlebit on their feet to make sure
(41:35):
that we have enough stock inamazon.
And then also, people leaveaging inventory in amazon for so
long they think it's like a,just like a storage facility.
No, like, you have aginginventory in amazon, you need to
lower your prices a little bit.
You need to.
You can't just let it sit thereright yeah, but yes, I don't
(41:55):
know the exact dates of how,what dates they pushed it off to
.
There definitely was an updatethat I'm not sure of.
That.
I'm not sure of the exact dates.
Adam Shaffer (42:04):
Well, definitely, I think a lot of people were
nervous about it because it ishard for people to manage it and
I get being understocked.
But I think things like PrimeDay people want to jam inventory
up there and I think peoplewere a little nervous about it.
So hopefully that quelled theirfears and people are going to
ship up there.
So one of my favorite questionsis simply like there's 2
(42:28):
million plus 3P sellers onAmazon today and that's a huge
number.
But I mean there's a smallgroup that make up the you know
kind of the tip of the spear butsay there's 2 million people on
Amazon selling stuff.
Is it too late for somebody tobreak in and sell on Amazon and
(42:48):
be successful, or do you thinkthere's always room?
Hymie Zebede (42:52):
It's definitely not too late.
I want to put it out there thatit's not just an easy passive
income type of business whereeveryone says, throw your stuff
up on Amazon, it's so easy,you'll get rich.
It's not like that.
It's a regular, it's a realbusiness.
It's a real business.
Yep, most businesses fail.
You have to do everything right.
(43:13):
But I'll tell you somethingabout Amazon I've never seen a
way where somebody could soquickly get their product shown
to the world and build up abrand.
It's the easiest time that it'sever been to really build up a
strong brand.
I'm saying because of Amazon,so I love the Amazon model.
(43:36):
It's not easy.
You have to do everything right.
You have to do all the rightthings.
You can't cheapen out by notwanting to run ads.
You can't cheapen out by sayingyou know what?
I can't afford to keep my pricea little bit lower in the
beginning to show Amazon goodconversion rates.
Or cheapen out with gettingcrappy photography.
(43:56):
With getting crappy photography, you need to do the right
things.
But if you do the right things,I really believe you can make
so much money on Amazon and,like you said, so many sellers
keep signing up and starting tosell on Amazon, but also so many
sellers, are losing and closingtheir businesses every year.
(44:17):
It's like a regular business.
It's not too late at year.
It's like a regular business.
It's not too late at all.
Adam Shaffer (44:21):
That's great, that's inspiring to me for sure,
and I'm sure everybody elsethat's listening.
So thanks for that.
And then we're going to startto wrap it up here.
Any other final words of wisdomfor the audience and also a way
that people could reach out toyou if they need your help.
Hymie Zebede (44:41):
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Just search my name, HymieZabede.
You can shoot me over a message.
Connect with me.
We'd love to chat.
I just want to let everyoneknow that it's what we just
spoke about a second ago.
It's so possible to buildsomething strong on Amazon.
Amazon shares so muchinformation with you on where
the sales are coming from, onthe conversion rates of your
(45:03):
competition.
They share so much data withyou that if you really look at
it, or if you have somebody onyour team who could look at
everything closely and do theright things, you could build a
very strong business so quickly.
And yeah, I wish everyone youknow everyone will build up
strong and really focus and, youknow, scale their Amazon
(45:24):
businesses.
And if you need help, if youneed any help, please reach out.
Adam Shaffer (45:28):
Yeah, of course.
Okay, awesome man.
Well, thank you so much.
Really good stuff today.
We can go on forever and talkabout this.
I love this topic and obviouslyyou do too, but time to say
goodbye.
So thanks for joining us todayand I hope to be back with you
soon.
Hymie Zebede (45:43):
Thank you for having me, adam, it's great.
Announcement (45:45):
Take care everyone , thank you for watching another
episode of the Planet Amazonpodcast, where we talk all
things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at ph.
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