MAY 12, 2021

Advertising costs killing off small sellers

1. Are FBA aggregators gonna be lots of mini-Amazon-esque setups across the world? Using enormous wealth, breadth of talent, and volume of data to create their own brands and dominate categories. Think Amazon Basics batteries, but more of it. [Listen].
2. Compact by Design section on Amazon listings. My thoughts are they should copy this with a “shop local” section of some sort, showcasing that this brand isn’t owned by some global beast. My shop local idea is an ongoing one [old post].
3. Great post on Amazon listing competition. [Post]. Anthony is a good pal of mine and this competition recap he’s done as a collab between PickFu and Helium 10 is a nice reminder for some of you feeling a little rusty on listing optimisation.
4. Advertising CPC is up from $0.5 to $3. [Data]. I always tell people to slam Amazon Advertising when it first launches. Some nice data from Pacvue to back this up. If you sell a consumable item, even better, gobble up as much as possible and start ACQUIRING CUSTOMERS.
5. Facebook saw a 30% increase in the average price per ad. Budgets are gonna start shifting to Amazon, but as we see above, that’s only getting more expensive. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do either, you’ve just gotta suck it up and ensure you’ve got smart people managing it - DIY is dangerous. I’ve always felt that brands who have a firmer grip on their traffic sources are building a strong foundation. Hence SEO. I worked with Charles at Amazon, he’s then gone onto smash the back doors out of his CMO position at The Drug Store by creating £50k in monthly sales from SEO alone. Cus he likes me he said next week he’ll block his calendar out for 10 consultations, first come first serve – free link to book.
6. It takes 4-days to recover if you lose the buy box. If you’ve got another seller on your listing, this is annoying, but it’s even worse if you’ve lost it due to negligence. Like ramping up your prices too quickly, which often causes Amazon to remove your buy box. Poor account health can also punish you. Stay healthy, stay fair, stay in the box [data].
7. Georges.blog is on Twitter. I’m sharing ongoing Amazon Creative ideas as well as podcast clips. Here are some great image ideas this week. I’m also so impressed with the volume of storefronts we’re finding right now, these are video form so we’ve gotta put them in the FB group rather than the archives (3700+ images).
8. An interesting view on those claiming you need 5k budgets for FB ads. [Link]. One comment interested me, saying you need huge budgets to help get the sales in and cover the agency cost. Which I thought was funny, cus my model follow an Amazon customer obsession mentality. If I save money, I pass that onto clients, I don’t rip their eyeballs out. Free audit.
9. Video in search product targeting. Good news for those utilising video ads on Amazon already. Product targeting just allows you to be more granular, which often means dollar saved. [Link].
10. Amazon suspends over a dozen sellers for fake review schemes. Including 2 of the biggest Amazon-native brands outside of China. Total sales suspended passes $2bn. Maybe there is a future where we can buy tech on Amazon without being terrified how much bollocks was floating around in the reviews section. [Link]. Amazon are also mailing postcards to sellers.

Thanks,

George

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