Ask me anything about eCommerce (Ongoing)

[door123]

@biophase Do you file any claims with Amazon returns? I have 3% return rate with FBA fulfillment over the past 400 units. Sometimes the item get damaged by Amazon delivery & sometimes they are returned to inventory. etc.

 

[door123]

I usually open up a case once a month to get a lost units credit. But it's not that much, I use helium10 to figure out what is lost. The refunds pay for the helium10 subscription.

Thank you. Yeah, Helium 10 is great, Love the ranking tool.

Is there another way to find where my sales are coming from? A couple days ago, I completely disappeared from page 1 for one of my popular kws, but I'm still getting sales from somewhere, no idea where. I turned off my ads a month ago, so it must be organic rankings somewhere. I am running out of inventory bc the growth of the sales volume is more than I anticipated.

Is there way to find where my sales are coming from besides helium 10?

 

[Matt_2190]

Hi @biophase, just wanna say you thank you. In this thread I found a lot of useful tips that helped me to start my activity.

I wanted to ask you a question: I noted that I receive a lot of good reviews during the year from my costumer. However strangely most of the reviews I receive during December (Christmas time) are negative.

Have you also had this experience?

The complaints are mostly about the quality of the product, not about the delivery time or anything else. However the product is the same throughout the year, so it's weird. I think that during December people are more stressed.

It is the second winter of my activity and I noted this trend.

 

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[Matt_2190]

Is the quality of your products genuinely good? Or could they use work?

I don't think it's necessarily stress that is causing the negative reviews, but rather people care a lot more about the quality of gifts they give than they do the stuff they buy for themselves.

I know personally I will ignore or overlook a shitty product I buy for myself in June because I'm the only one affected and generally don't care enough to leave a review about it. But when I buy something for someone else, like at Christmas - the gift is a reflection of me and if it's not good, I'm going to be pissed because I thought I picked out something great and end up with someone I'd be embarrassed to give. It wasted my time and effort and money and now there might not even be enough time to order something else - I'd absolutely leave a negative review.

This is a great point to see it.

However, the quality of the product is good. Maybe the small size could make it unsuitable for a gift.

 

[Blackman]

Going to have to bump this thread, but it's full of gold, so I'm sure no one will mind...

I'm running an e-commerce store with about 15 products and promoting it via Google Shopping Ads. I'm slowly scaling to more and more products, but I've got a habit which I developed many years ago, and I'm not sure if it's worth sticking with it, as the store grows...

Basically, I've got a little notepad for each product, where I keep the campaign/ad group performance details of it on daily basis, recording all the important data, such as clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, average positions, search impressions share and the sales generated on that specific day. Then at the end of the month I also do a summary for each product following the same principle, to work out profit/loss made and any changes that need to be made.

This doesn't seem much of a chore at the moment with only a few products that I'm currently selling and I also understand that this data can be accessed at any time on Google Ads, but it's something that I've been doing for a long time and it feels that I might lose some control/focus by no longer recording all of this manually every day.

Some of you guys who run Google Shopping Ads for your e-commerce stores, it would be really helpful to hear your thoughts.

Shout out to @Phikey @Dimitron @biophase and @Andy Black

Sorry if I've missed anyone, would appreciate everyone's thoughts on this who's running GSA ads.

Thank you

 

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[21elnegocio]

I am starting from scratch, that means, that I don't have an email list yet.


Great, thanks for the tip.

Concerning the question how I plan to sell my product: I was thinking of selling via my own website in the beginning and using Google Ads for advertising. I also planned to try to build a following through Facebook and Instagram after the launch and thus build another revenue stream.

To be honest, though, I have no idea if this is a good plan. I have never done anything like this before. Thus, I am grateful for any suggestions and tips.
Thanks.

Just curious to ask about email list and products. So to sell a product you first create an email list to sell a product via email marketing ?

 

[AlfaStream]

Alot has changed since my Ask me about Ecommerce AMA from 2012, so I thought I'd do an updated AMA as some of the answers in the previous thread are now outdated. The online marketplace has shifted greatly in the past couple years. Some examples of what has changed:

• Google Shopping is now at the top of your search results, so ranking #1 for a specific term is not as valuable as before. I don't do anymore SEO.
• Big box stores like Amazon, Walmart and Target now dominate the results whereas before smaller niche stores did.
• Amazon is now the place to be in Ecommerce.
• A huge shift has happened from dropshipping to importing and branding.

So go ahead and ask away!

Is it worthwhile to dropship high ticket items, or luxury merchandise with higher margins. That being said, is with worthwhile to use a financing partner, and push that as the primary method for payment to make higher ticket items more affordable for consumers in terms of a luxury brand, or expensive items like say electric motorcycles/bikes is one example, lets say you have a partnership with a supplier.

Thank you for your insight.

 

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[Stefan.was.here]

Do you guys have a Telegram of any kind of group for amazon FBA?

 

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[Bones81]

If you were looking to buy an E-Commerce business off a marketplace like Empire Flippers etc what are the top qualities you'd look for in a business? What would make one jump out to you compared to the others?

 

[Stefan.was.here]

Hi @biophase, this thread is a gem.

I need some advice on a product I want to sell.

The product's an improvement in utility and design of an actual product in the market.

Let's call the original product "Product A" and my idea "Product B".

Both products are made of PU Leather and have stitching.

Product A costs GBP 12.99 on Amazon because it has none of the features I want in Product B, so it's much cheaper to manufacture.

I've talked with a manufacturer in china to produce Product B and they ask for a MOQ of 100 pieces at GBP 4 each. If we add UPS air shipping, the total cost would be GBP 8, and that is without packaging. Let's add GBP 2 of packaging and the COGS would be GBP 10.

Also, Product B is listed on Etsy and it's worth GBP 120 because it's made of real leather.

I was wondering if it would be worth selling the PU leather version of it on Amazon and Etsy for half the price.

Here's an image of the AmazScout calculator with all the numbers:



I'll list the differences between Products A and B to make it easier to understand:

The niche: Productivity
Buyer Persona: users that are more into the productivity side rather than the gaming side

Product A:

- Doesn't have the improved feature of Product B
- It's way cheaper
- Also looks cheaper

Product B:

- It's an improved version of Product A
- It's better looking
- You can only find it on Aliexpress for GBP 15 but they don't have a black color with white stitching and it takes 30 days to arrive home
- If you want it with black color and white stitching you have to buy it from Etsy for GBP 120

My solution:

To sell Product B made of PU leather on Amazon and Etsy so people can get the improved version of product A without having to spend GBP 120 on a real leather one.

I hope you could understand my post while I've tried to not reveal the product.

PS: Product B sells on Amazon US for $33

PS 2: I came with this idea because it's a problem I have. I can't find Product B anywhere and I don't want other color from Aliexpress or to pay GBP 120 for a real leather option.

 

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[ygtrhos]

Hi @biophase I think I have already thanked you before for creating this thread and maintaining it. I do it again.

Do you still think that amazon is the place to start in 2022 & 2023 ?

 

[mikecarlooch]

This is the process that many people follow. But I don't follow this process at all because you are not adding any value. As an example, say that you found that kitchen knife sets sell for $50 on amazon and that you can get them for $15 in China. You look on amazon and there are 15 people selling these kitchen knives at $50. You find the supplier making their kitchen knives and you put a red handle with your logo on them and sell them for $50 on Amazon. So what did you really do? Nothing. You created another kitchen knife set on Amazon that looks like 15 other ones except with a different color handle.

What I would do is see what I can change about the kitchen knife set. Here are things that you can do to improve the kitchen knife set:
1) Use a better quality blade
2) Use a better quality handle
3) Improve the knife block
4) Use a different combination of knives
5) Add more knives
6) Add a butcher block cutting board
7) Add a money back guarantee
8) Change the blade shapes

Imagine if you did 2-5 of these things. How do you think your listing will stack up compared to the original 15 listings? What if your cost ballooned to $25 and you still listed your knife set at $50. Do you think that you would sell more units? Do you think that you need to giveaway sets for free reviews? No, in this case, people will find your knife set and buy it because it is better when compared to the other sets out there.

Hey Bio - I have a basic question I'm trying to figure out.

When you get the idea for the better blade, handle, etc (any material that could make the product better), are you simply going from manufacturer to manufacturer on alibaba asking "hey, can you make this?"

Or is it a combination of suppliers providing different parts?