ER 018: Super URLs, Stealth Review Strategy, State of Amazon Marketplace

ER 018: Super URLs, Stealth Review Strategy, State of Amazon Marketplace

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Show Notes

This is The Ecommerce Roundup, Podcast 18, today is October 27, 2017, I’m your host Bryan, and here’s the ecommerce news roundup for this week –

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We are now thick in the fourth quarter and this is an exciting time of the year. Expect your ads to be more expensive, and expect your conversion rates to go up. My advice to you is to ride out the wave and spend more money on ads now while the traffic exists.

That being said, let’s get into the podcast this week.

1. Thoughts on the Amazon marketplace as a whole right now
2. Super URLs
3. Stealth strategy for getting product reviews
4. Wall Street Segment

Thoughts on the Amazon marketplace as a whole right now

I know I haven’t posted a podcast in a month so I just want to give you a high level overview of where I’m seeing things now.

This is a bit of a state of the marketplace speech right here.

People have been coming to me asking for help with their Amazon operations and they’re approaching the situation as though it’s 2015 still.

The marketplace is maturing, and the players who have been selling in the space have mature listings, with lots of reviews, and a ton of seller history.

It’s no longer good enough to just put up a product, even with great images and listing copy, then turn on PPC and expect to start taking sales.

Sure, maybe this is possible in small niches, but soon those gaps will be closed too. The secret is out and everyone knows that selling on Amazon is incredibly lucrative. Entrepreneur magazine now regularly posts articles on how to get started selling on Amazon. Selling on Amazon is now mainstream.

If you’re struggling with sales, and you have good images, good listing copy, good keywords, and reviews, then you’re problem is probably not doing more keyword research and using the hot new software tool that’ll boost your rank.

Your problem is either your product isn’t demand, or you’re not doing enough to nurture the sales to reviews flywheel that feeds the Amazon algorithm that increases your organic rank.

If you aren’t continually running promotions for old products and launching new products, I have news for you, your competitors are.

The players who have been selling for 2 or more years are now making so much money that they are dominating the ads because they can bid the highest. They also have a lot of reviews and are only getting more. It’s getting harder and harder to be seen on Amazon for a new or underperforming product.

The products that have a thousand reviews now will have two thousand reviews next year. And unless Amazon makes some sort of change there will be further consolidation and the rich products will continue to win and it will

Alright, so what do you do? Where’s the good news in this? What’s the plan of action?

Continuous promotions.

Continuous promotions should be a part of your regular marketing plan. I’m seeing the same companies do promotions on Zon Blast and Viral Launch continuously. They can afford to pay for it! And this is squeezing out the small guys. Ironically, I heard the founder of Viral Launch on a podcast say that he thinks the blasts that they sell are becoming less effective, and I agree with him, but that’s for another time. For now they still work.

If you don’t want to do these types of promotions I understand because I don’t like doing them either. Instead, run Facebook ads to a giveaway to build your email list. Then, after people sign up for your giveaway, get a Mailchimp account and send them an email follow up with a promo code to get your product at a big discou