TAS 377 (Hot Seat) Can I Make My Product Successful on Amazon or Should I Quit? (Know Your Numbers)

How can you learn from another Hot Seat session with Chris and Scott on this episode of The Amazing Seller? This Hot Seat session could include the one crucial piece that you need that will help push you and your brand over the top on your journey toward success. On this episode, Chris and Scott talk about cost evaluations, how to increase sales, how to improve your ranking, the consistency of demand, PPC impressions, and so much more! As always, Chris and Scott bring their combined knowledge and experience to pressing issues and topics that sellers like you are considered about. Don’t miss this informative episode!

Counting the Cost

Where are you in your product research phase? Have you taken the time and properly evaluated all the costs that are involved with creating, shipping, and listing your potential product? Don’t get blindsided by unexpected costs down the road! Make sure you take the time and go through the steps that Scott has highlighted for the TAS community. There is nothing worse than getting your product listing up and running and THEN realizing that you have underestimated the costs involved. To make sure this doesn't happen to you, make sure to catch this episode of The Amazing Seller!

Racking Up Sales

Do you know what it will take to get your ecommerce business up and running? Are you aware that you won’t break even right away? Have you prepared your mindset for a long term outlook? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott and Chris stress how important it is to NOT expect instant success in the sale of your product. Don’t lose money unnecessarily but understand that it will cost money for your product to get started and gain momentum. To make sure you are headed in the right direction when it comes to costs and expectations, don’t miss this helpful episode!

What is YOUR PPC Strategy?

When it comes to using the Amazon tool “Pay Per Click,” do you have an effective strategy? Do you have an appropriate expectation of the data rate you should be getting from PPC? How do you know when you should adjust your approach? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott and Chris breakdown their approach to using PPC in the most effective way possible. Don’t waste your resource and don’t pull your efforts prematurely! Listen to what Scott and Chris have to say and what they’ve experienced as the best approach to using this tool so you can maximize your efforts as you grow your business. To find out more about PPC, make sure to listen to this episode!

Test Your Price Point

Do you have you Amazon product listed at the right price point? How do you know? Have you spent time and resources testing your product’s price point? Is NOW the right time for you consider testing your price point? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott and Chris go over their approach to testing and evaluating the right price point for selling a product on Amazon. If you are evaluating your approach and want to make sure you are leaving every stone turned over, you might want to consider testing your product’s price point. Find out how you can test it effectively on this episode!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

[0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast!
[2:00] Chris reads the email for this Hot Seat session.
[7:00] Make sure you understand your costs!
[15:00] How to get SALES and get ranked.
[24:00] The consistency of demand.
[27:00] PPC impressions.
[31:00] Scott talks about a successful keyword strategy.
[36:00] Testing the price point.

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TRANSCRIPT TAS 377

TAS 377: (Hot Seat) Can I Make My Product Successful on Amazon or Should I Quit? (Know Your Numbers)

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:03] Scott: Well hey, hey what’s up everyone! Welcome back to another episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast. This is episode number 377. And today we're going to do another hot seat. I know you guys love the hot seat you guys love to…

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…listen to myself and Chris Shaffer talk about what's working, what's not working or how to make it better, and that's what we're going to do here again today. I got my good friend back on the show once again. It seems like you were just here Chris, what's up man?

[00:00:28] Chris: It's weird, right?

[00:00:29] Scott: Yeah.

[00:00:29] Chris: It's almost like we were already talking to each other and then we decided to record a podcast.

[00:00:34] Scott: Yeah, kind of, right?

[00:00:35] Chris: Weird.

[00:00:35] Scott: Yeah, it is. Actually, I want to let people know like when these hot seats happen it really comes from me answering an email and then kind of going back and forth and then being like, “You know what, maybe we should discuss this because I think it's good for everyone to hear the back and forth.” And also kind of like hearing what Chris and I have done in a live environment when we do our TAS breakthrough lives. It's very, very similar to what we're doing here. And I get a lot of people that say they love listening to these because, again, they're unscripted and we just kind of dig into someone's business. So today, we're going to be talking about, “Can I make my product successful on amazon or should I quit?” And I'm just going to let you guys know it's going to probably come down to product selection but there's some other things we can kind of look at too.

[00:01:19] Chris: Spoiler alert.

[00:01:21] Scott: Spoiler, spoiler. But, just to let you guys know we're going to be digging into product selection again because guys I'm telling you once you get into this and you start to understand how things are working, you're going to come back and say, “Man, where did I make that mistake?” It's generally going to be in the product selection and it could just be in not just the selection of the product because it's not doing well in Amazon or it's too competitive, it could be because you're not able to source it right. And that's another spoiler alert. So, Chris, are you ready to dig into this hot seat?

[00:01:21] Chris: Let's jump right in, man.

[00:01:56] Scott: I should let people know though the show notes. I should let them know about the show notes. I always like to kind of let everyone know in the beginning this is episode 377. So transcripts, show notes, theamazingseller.com/377. All right Chris go ahead. What were you saying?

[00:02:12] Chris: I was going to say, if you're ready I'm just going to jump in and read the email that we have here. The inspiration for this hot seat.

[00:02:18] Scott: Yeah go ahead.

[HOT SEAT]

[00:02:18] Chris: So it says, “Hey Scott. My name is Camilla.” And guys if we're butchering names just roll with it. “I've been listening to your webinars and reading your emails for the last few months, rock on. I've been selling on Amazon since January. However, I'm just not being very successful at it. No matter what I do, it doesn't seem to result in much conversion. My PPC has a three digit ACOS percentage which is nuts both in the auto and manual. My category has probably the worst conversion rate and I'm running out of both kind of money and motivation. At this point, I'm throwing my hands up in the air and wondering if Amazon is too saturated in my niche, and that it's just not going to be possible for new sellers like myself to succeed.

I have on several occasions gotten to the bottom of page one just to find a few short days afterwards that I fall back to page six or seven. I just can't seem to get it to stick. My sales sometimes are zero for a week and then four or five a day or four or five a week. So we’re kind of swinging it back and forth on sales there. I wish I could figure it out like all of the other sellers that you talk about who are finding success. I would really appreciate if there's any advice that you can give to help me turn this thing around.” And then they did us a favor, they sent us some screenshots and some listings and some of that kind of stuff and we'll use that to dive in as we work our way through here today.

[00:03:38] Scott: Yeah and again, I want to highlight that there are people struggling in this space. And I say struggling it's like the people that are struggling are the ones that are actually doing something. So number one, high fives for actually doing something. I think that's important to know here, because there's a lot of people that want to jump in but again, it's one of those things like, “Men, what if it doesn't work?” And I think the successful people know that it probably isn't going to work 100% as planned. I mean if you've ever built a house, that's definitely the case and it's pretty scary because nothing ever turns out the way that you planned.

You think is going to smooth and it doesn't. And it's the same thing in business or life or anything. But I just did an interview with someone we met at Seller Summit, Brandon. And we talked about how he kind of went through the whole process very similar to this but his first product wasn't good, his second product wasn't good, his third product wasn't good but he kept going. And now he's on track to do over $500,000 this year. So, again, it's like one of those things that I'm here to help you, Chris is here to help you, everyone here within TAS the community, everybody is here to support each other and that's really what I want to do here.

I'm not sugarcoating things. There are going to be bumps on the road, there are going to be obstacles and you're going to see this right here. But there are some things that if I can highlight these for you, you can avoid these mistakes or look a little bit closer before you pull the trigger. So that's why I like doing these hot seats. So again, you're not alone. If you're thinking like this or feeling like this it's totally, totally normal. But these hot seats are really here to help you and kind of highlight what people are struggling with or being frustrated with. So, Chris, with that being said, I want to dive into exactly what we've seen right off the bat because, he actually followed up with another email. And we'll kind of go back to how we normally start with this.

[00:05:37] Scott: But this really immediately, made it very clear to me that there is something immediately that I would be doing, or I would have thought about doing in the beginning before I would have even jumped in. So maybe we can kind of address that first. What did you see when actually, you know what, let me just read that that’ll probably be better. Let me go ahead and read what he had wrote to me. He said, “Thank you, Scott. I need to add that… Just so you know that my cost is really high with this product. And just to let you guys know it's selling right now for like $25.95 and some, I've already looked, some are selling for $29.95. I think even a few dollars more than that.”

[00:06:16] Chris: $59.95.

[00:06:17] Scott: Okay. So it's even up higher. So that isn't a problem, necessarily, as long as we have comparing apples to apples and all that stuff. But he goes on to say, “The cost per unit is $9.50 that's not what shipping from China through Sea. It's higher than expected and it's $4.50 on top of the $9.50. So we're talking like $14, $15 here. FBA fees $10.17 makes a total of $24.17, selling for $25.95, basically giving it away for free than anyone that buys it.” So that's a number that's number one like red flag I've seen right off the bat before I even look at the listing before I even look at anything. It's like that means that we need to be able to charge at least $35 to $40 in order to get to our $10 in profit.

We have to be able to do that. So are we going to be able to do that? That would be the next question. Can we? And we've kind of looked at the category and at the products and all that stuff, and there is a chance. But, the ones that are really selling are in that $25 to $30 range, I would say. But, again I just want to let you guys know when you're doing your homework, you need to understand the costs. Now, I'm okay if this is selling for $25.95 right now and you're breaking even on your first run and you did a test run of 250 units. I'm okay with that as long as, as long as, you see that you can reduce your costs by $8 to $10 in the future. Right?

[00:07:54] Chris: Right.

[00:07:55] Scott: If you can reduce that down even $7. If you can reduce that, then we’re okay. Then I'm okay with that. Then we're testing, we know we're spending more but we know eventually we are going to be to reduce that cost. I think is shipping rate away we know we can reduce. I think that's high for going by sea and this product weighs a pound. I don't know. I think something went wrong there.

[00:08:17] Chris: It's high for air.

[00:08:18] Scott: Yeah, totally is. I mean gosh, I'm doing an air shipment right now and I think we're only paying like less than $2 a unit like a $1.75 or something, I think it's a pound. So there's something wrong there and maybe we don't have all the details. If that's the case that's good. I mean it's bad but it's good, because at least we know that that's wrong, we can probably get it shipped if we went by sea for $1, $1.50 a unit, so we've just cut our cost by $3. That's good. But now the cost of the unit also at $9.50 I think is high. And again, that's where you've got to do your research. You've got to reach out to other manufacturers, other suppliers all that stuff. So, again, we haven't even gotten into like looking at the listing and looking at all this up.

That's my first thing. So when you guys are doing your product research, and then you're doing your sourcing, make sure you know the numbers. Make sure you know the numbers what they are now and what they can be in the future if you buy more if you have a better relationship with your supplier, shipping. Maybe you doing air now then you’re going to go to sea. Understand where you're going to be able to cut cost without compromising quality. Chris, do you want to mention anything there before we jump into the actual looking at the listing, and the depth and all that stuff?

[00:09:31] Chris: Absolutely. And Scott, we don't often get to talk about people making a product selection mistake in this stage. And I don't know that it was necessarily a mistake because there are some things that we can do to improve that. Obviously ordering a higher quantity is going to bring down unit cost, shipping by Sea or even just getting a second quote for that air shipment is going to change a lot of those things. But the first place that products get knocked out for me is based on competition. If they're not overly competitive, the second place that I lose the most products in the product research stage is in the sourcing.

And the reason that we talk about having substantial margins, we're talking you know $10 profit is what we shoot for. Obviously, I'm very happy with $8 or $9 or $20 but $10 is kind of the ballpark average that we talk about is for exactly this reason. Because if I'm going to get $8 on the first order and I make a change, then I know I can get 10. If I'm going to make $1.50 on the first order, that becomes very, very difficult to get it launched and to make it work. So that's kind of the second place that a lot of products get knocked out for me. And it's something that we don't get to talk about a lot because most people don't share their product costs with us one when we do these kinds of things. So that was an extremely helpful piece.

[00:10:49] Scott: I think that's huge and that could that could make it more obviously profitable but also it could make it where you would say, “Okay, I would definitely then pursue this and make it work.” Because now that I'm looking I'm kind of digging through as you were talking I was… And I'm doing these live guys. I'm actually going through the keyword. The main keyword is right in the front of the listing so that's good. And I'm looking and there is definitely, definitely, definitely depth and demand here. I'm going to kind of read through some of these numbers.

I just went in Amazon, I typed in the keyword and then from there I'm just going to run Jungle Scout, the extension that is, and I'm pulling it up right now. And I'm going to let it pull in and as it's pulling in I'll just kind of give you my first impression. It's got really good solid depth and demand. Not crazy numbers either by the way which I like. Like the first one for this keyword is selling 394 a month at $17.80. The price is too low for me on that but it's still but still, there is demand there and then you have 137 reviews. Then I go the next one selling for $13.99 and it's 1,000 sales. Then the next one is $19.99, 528 sales with 146 reviews. And then the next one is $29.99 and they're selling 1,200. So there's clearly… And I should highlight this too.

If there's a certain pack sizes, this would come into play. If you were going to do like one pack, a three pack, a five pack, you have to base that on what you are looking at what people are buying. In this case, the $29.99 one, is definitely right in line with the one that he is selling. So I would say 1,207 sales for that same size, the same components, would be what I'd be looking at.

[00:12:53] Scott: That one has 472 reviews a little bit higher but it still shows people want that size. And then I go to the next one it is $24.99, 738 sales. The next one $29.99, 677 the next one is $24.99, 377 sales. So all the way down we’re… I think there's only one that's like 242, all the other ones are 700, 400, 400, 400, 700, 600 and the reviews are all within range. I think the average reviews is like 286 if I'm looking at the average reviews up top on Jungle Scout.

So I actually like this. This looks good to me like this is what I would say would be your picture perfect like, “Yes, this is a good depth and demand.” I probably should even take a screenshot of this and maybe even post it in the in the notes so you guys can actually see what I'm looking at. Obviously, I won’t be borrowing out like you know stuff that can give away his product. But I think this right here looks really, really strong and the numbers look okay. I think you can get between $25 and $30 with having a similar package which he does. Chris, what your thoughts by looking at this?

[00:14:05] Chris: When you and I take a look at the screenshot I said, “Demand is not the problem.” That was kind of my first gut reaction because you're looking at you know number four, is 1,200 you go the whole way down to number 15, 753 at $50. Right? 697 and number 16 at $22. So there obviously is some room to sell in here even at the higher end price point that he was looking at originally. And so one of the things that's kind of coming to me just on the fly here is maybe you go from $25 to $29 just so that when you do sell it, you actually do make a little bit of profit and instead of selling it at breakeven because there's a lot of people selling it at $29. And as long as you're a competitive product with them, which it looks just kind of from our understanding that you are, then that may be one of the first things that I try, rather than pricing under the competition. Does that make sense?

[00:14:58] Scott: It makes total sense and again I'm just going to kind of dive into something else here because it’s just what's coming to mind. He is in a great market to do what we've talked about and building an email list, so he can push sales. So for me personally, the number one thing you need to do is get sales. To rank on page one is where you're going to get sales. How do you rank on page one? We’ve talked about this. You need sales. How do you get sales?

You push product through your email list, you reach out to influencers, you reach out to bloggers, YouTubers, you do a contest like we've talked about. All that stuff and then you drive sales. You do pay-per-click but you have to be aggressive. This is again a perfect example of in the beginning, your first order, maybe your second order, your second run depending on how many are doing. 500 units, 1,000 units are probably not going to make you money. That's really to set the foundation to get you ranked. But if you get ranked and you are on this page one, you can pretty much say you're going to get 300 sales minimum because everyone else is, and you have a very similar product.

I looked at the product, the product looks great. Pictures look good. Like nothing's wrong there. Your keywords look good but you're not ranking. So how do you get those sales to rank? You can’t. So right off the bat, most people and you're not alone in this but most people think, “I bought a product, I need to break even.” Like, “I have to break even.” Well, we talk to a guy a Seller Summit who's done a ton of brick and mortar grand openings and that's what I like to kind of refer back to. When people launch businesses a bank maybe a new deli, whatever, they're doing grand opening sales. And they're spending between $5,000 and $10,000 for that opening sale to get people in the door to get them noticed. That's what we're doing in Amazon.

So your main thing is going to be how do I get on page one? Well, to understand the metrics you need to match what people are doing or beat them, preferably to beat them. So if I look at the average for this page which is 24 listings, it's showing me, it's 447 sales. But that doesn't mean you have to hit that many sales in order to rank. I'm looking at some here that only have 242 sales in their ranking, I see some that 186 that are ranking. So I would say, if you can get ten sales a day consistently for five to 10 to 14 days it's a good chance you're going to rank because your keyword is right there. And it looks like, from what I'm seeing in everybody else’s listing that is their main keyword too. Chris, what's your thoughts on that little rant.

[00:17:36] Chris: You know it's funny that same guy that you were talking about said, they didn't expect their brick and mortars to be profitable for three years.

[00:17:44] Scott: Three years, right.

[00:17:46] Chris: What we're shooting for on Amazon is to kind of break even on that first order and it's the same thing in PPC. Everybody gets worried about their ACOS. We say look, “If you can get to breakeven ACOS that's ideal.” And then from there as you start to refine, as you start to rank organically, then you're going to start to see that profit. I think it comes from the instant gratification that we get on Amazon where we get a swipe inside that little app and go, “We made 10 sales.” And if we don't see that immediate progress in terms of money coming back into our bank account, we can forget that this is a business. And that we have to be willing to put our head down and push to get this stuff to work. You can't just list a product on Amazon expect to make money with it.

And that's something that a lot of people kind of fall into that trap where they go, “Well, you know what, I put the listing up.” Okay. But what did you do to push it? Did you push it to an email list? Did you run PPC aggressively? Did you do any of those kinds of things? I honestly think that they are positioned in a great spot. Like you said Scott, they have a perfect market to run the strategy that we've talked about in the past, just like the giveaway strategy, to build an email list, to do any of those kinds of things. And you're going to be able to push a tremendous number of sales to this product by doing that. The biggest downside for them is because of their tight margins unlike with the recent launches that you and I had where even at a 50% discount we were able to make a profit, you're probably going to end up losing some money on those product to do that successfully and to drive it to the first page.

So as long as you go in knowing that, it's fine. Just go in knowing that if you sell 100 of these, you're going to lose $2 a unit. That's not that big of a deal if it pushes you to the top of the first page and on the next 300, you're able to make $5, $6, $7 a unit. Which if you move it to 29.99 you're going to make an about four or five bucks unit. So just going in knowing that I think you'd be okay.

[00:19:46] Scott: Yeah, I agree.

[00:19:46] Chris: That’s where that margin can strangle you. And that's one of the things that I'm probably just going to keep hammering him over the head on is that that margin is so important when you're sourcing specifically for this reason. Now, knowing that you have a margin that you have, then you can go in knowing that you're not going to make a profit necessarily on that first order because we're going to be promoting it aggressively. Then if that second order is the same size or larger, you know what your margins are and you know what you have to do. Does that make sense it?

[00:20:16] Scott: It makes sense. And I think what's hard for people to realize and understand is the goal is to get to page one here. Whatever it takes to get to page one the right now should be happening. Because once you get to page one, as long as this is a big, ‘but’ here but you have to have a good product. I think they have a good product. I think if they get on page one, they'll probably have a good chance of staying there because the sales will stay there. The key to staying on page one is to have sales consistently at that number that you need to be to rank on page one. So how are you going to do that? You've got to figure out a way to get on page one, and the way to get there is sales.

Optimization is already there. It's already optimized. I looked at the listing, listing looks fine. Sure can you tweak things? Of course, we all can. We can test things. But right now, it's going to be about sales that might even be lowering your price right now and losing $3 a unit. It's the same thing as back in the day, eight months ago, when we would do a product launch and you would give away a product at a dollar and lose money. Like, lose like $10 a unit. And you'd spend… Like in my first launch, I lost basically, I didn't lost, I just basically spent as marketing $1,800 to do that first launch. I didn't make any money I actually paid money. And I didn't make any money on a product but it allowed me to get that momentum and start to land in those ranking spots. And then now I just do a little bit of pay-per-click and that thing kind of runs on autopilot for me because it's there.

So it's a matter of getting there and then getting ranked. I'm also looking here Chris, and I pulled this up and you can see my screen. I'm actually looking inside of Jungle Scout. I'm clicking on the price because I wanted to see the price for this one. And this one company that I'm looking at it's like a private labeler and you know it is, it's not like a major brand. And I always like to do that too because I want to see like how well they're doing as being as being not someone that might be… Like there's another one here that it looks like they've got like one, two, three, four spots, five spots out of 24 because there are a main brand.

[00:22:26] Chris: Including one listed at the wrong category.

[00:22:28] Scott: Yeah. So I’d say they are a main brand. They are a brand that you can build as well that has multiple products that's taking up multiple spots on page one. Okay? But let's exclude them and then let's look at some of the other ones that have low reviews but yet they have price points where I like and they're selling 377 a month and another one is selling 677 a month. One has 97 reviews one has 50 reviews and they're ranked six and seven. So now what I do is I go into the price and I want to see how their price has been doing. So I'm going to click on the one right now. And it basically pulls up that they've been selling since it looks like maybe March of this year. So we're talking March, April, May about three months. So fairly new. They started at $35, they've brought it down. They've been kind of floating the price around for a little bit. But now since the past looks like a few weeks, they've been locked in a $29.95.

But again, they're kind of new and they're ranked. Now, the other one I’m going to look at is another one that’ selling for $24.99, 377 sales a month at 50 reviews. Another newer seller beginning of March. So three months. So that, again, it shows me, it proves to me that I can rank too if I get enough sales. Does that make sense Chris? Am I clear on what I'm trying to kind of let people know by looking at page one?

[00:23:55] Chris: Yeah. What you're taking a look at is not just the demand but the consistency of the demand, right?

[00:24:00] Scott: Yeah.

[00:24:00] Chris: And the other thing that you're looking at right now is the price to see if, “Well, did they make a massive drop in their price to rank? What did they do?” And that's kind of the stuff that we just do intuitively because we've done this a few times. But quite honestly, if you can drive yourself on the first page, the demand is fairly consistent. And if you can make your way there, you're going to continue to sell.

[00:24:22] Scott: And also I'm trying to show also that there's some new sellers that came in that are ranking in less than four months. So it means that if I came here and I’d seen everyone on this page, now I want to see some that are selling consistently all the time because I want to prove that there's consistent depth. But I also want to see a couple of weaknesses. I want to see a couple of spots that people just kind of snuck their way in there by doing maybe a push to their email list, or maybe they have an influencer that mentioned their product, and how they got a whole bunch of sales.

That allows me to see that as long as they got the sales, as long as they were optimized, they ranked. So it just shows me that they can do it. It's very similar to years ago when we would do like ranking a website. Like if we’ve seen that someone ranked in the top 10 and it was a forum post or something or it was something that was just it was just okay, it kind of proved that you didn't have to be a major heavy domain, we call them or a really established authoritative brand or name like Oprah. Like you can get there just by doing some simple SEO stuff. It's very similar.

I'm just looking at, yes, there's people that are in here, there's businesses that have been here for a year or two, three years. They’re just consistently selling all that. But I also see people that have gotten their way to page one without being an established brand. So I'm just showing that there's a weakness there that you can actually get into that top spots or the top page, or the first page for ranking. That's kind of what I'm trying to kind of illustrate here with audio of course. But, I think this is great. I mean there's a ton of opportunity, a ton of room. What else would you like to add Chris?

[00:26:08] Chris: The other thing that I wanted to take a look at was just the search terms report that they sent over because they mentioned their ACOS was in the three digits. Which it looks like you know it actually improved a little bit, based on the search term report. We're talking 97% ACOS but the thing to keep in mind is we're not looking at all the many clicks or impressions, we're looking at… So the search terms report is a 60 day rolling average. So we're looking at 28,000 total impressions and it looks like the PPC efforts started about a month, a little less than a month before they pulled the report for us. So that's in a month. So you're talking a thousand impressions a day. Scott, what is your kind of ballpark goal for impressions when you're running PPC?

[00:27:00] Scott: Well, I mean is far as like when I'm running it I want to get a few thousand I don't want to just have like a couple hundred.

[00:27:07] Chris: You're talking a few thousand a day.

[00:27:09] Scott: Yes, yes, yes. And if I don't then I know that I'm not spending enough or I'm not bidding enough. Because if you don't have that data, how can you really make a decision that you're getting clicks and you're getting sales? You don't have enough impressions. You don't have enough people seeing it. So I would say you definitely want a few thousand.

[00:27:27] Chris: And so what we're talking about… We're probably low on the bid here.

[00:27:32] Chris: What is the bid?

[00:27:33] Chris: I don't see the bid, I see the spend and the cost per click. But I don't see any cost per click on any of these keywords that's over 80 cents which to me tells me the bid is probably a dollar, which is probably low in this space. And then a lot of people that are listening are probably thinking, “Well but if my margins are tight and you know my ACOS isn't good then I can't afford to spend more than a dollar per click. But the thing you have to keep in mind is you need to get the data to understand what you need to be spending, and you need to get the data to understand what search terms are actually profitable for you, and which ones aren't. And it turns out that there are four search terms in this report that have led to sales. And the first on the ACOS, 2.97, 2.04, 2.66 and 4.2.

[00:28:31] Scott: And that's ACOS?

[00:28:33] Chris: Yeah.

[00:28:33] Scott: Okay. So we've got some winners?

[00:28:35] Chris: Potentially. But again, we don't have enough clicks or impressions to even know.

[00:28:40] Scott: I understand that but what I'm saying is like there's probably some there that got clicks with no sales or didn't get enough impressions. So I would be looking at the ones that got clicks to sales right off the bat, which you have enough there for that. But on the other side of things I'd say, “Did I get a whole bunch of clicks on something and it didn't convert?” Then I'd probably be pausing that one.

[00:28:57] Chris: And that's kind of the second step of this. Because if you look at… There's a lot of ASINs in here which you're going to see and I would suggest probably pulling those out if they're not converting for you. But you have to look at ones that have a handful of clicks on them. And one of the ones that's performing very poorly is actually a way to describe the product in terms of what it's made from. You spent $7 on that and that doesn't sound like a lot. But when your margins are tight, you have to be a little bit more aggressive in pausing those things.

And this is where like the art side of PPC comes in. I know I'm going to give Brandon at Ignite a heart attack when I say this but, if I get more than five or six clicks on something and it doesn't convert in any way especially if my margins are tight like this I'm going to pause it or I'm going to add it as a negative. And so this is where I would start to go through this report, even if you only focused on the ones that are already made you sales, that that would tremendously lower your ad spend, because we're talking almost a 100% conversion rate on those. I think one of them is at like 94% and the other four are 100%. So you're talking one or two clicks, yielding one or two sales each which doesn't sound like a ton but you know that those are close to breakeven for you because your margins in any other product or with regular margins, those would be amazing.

And so what I would suggest is instead of spending money on the stuff that hasn't converted for you yet, focus on the ones that have and kind of go from there because you know that those have converted. So that would be kind of where I'm at. The other thing is I would just straight up pause the automatic campaign at this point because it doesn't look like that's produced anything for you. And that's going to that's going to go a long way.

[00:30:44] Scott: And I was going to say. I mean that's like really good advice. How many keywords are in there right now in the manual that they have in their campaign? Do you know? Can you see that off the top? And the reason why I'm asking this is because I've been finding this, and I know I talked to Dom recently about it and stuff. In the beginning, it's not about throwing as many keywords in as you possibly can, it's about going after the ones especially in a broad, and putting up a bunch of money on the broad terms, and letting it then take that budget and focus on those 10 keywords versus that 152/100 that might lead to something.

[00:31:26] Chris: I don't know how many are actually in the ad set but there are two that have led to actual clicks which is what shows up in the search terms report.

[00:31:35] Scott: So let me ask you, is one of those keywords in there the main one that they have in their title?

[00:31:41] Chris: They both are. One is the exact, it's a two-word keyword so technically, I guess the keyword phrase that they have in their title. The other one is a longer tail version of that.

[00:31:54] Scott: And that's the broad that they're doing and then you can see actually what the search term was from the report that you’re looking at?

[00:32:00] Chris: Yep.

[00:32:01] Scott: Okay. And in that search report, is the keyword the exact keyword that's actually being plugged in there?

[00:32:06] Chris: No, and I could probably share a screen with you. But it's a long tail version of that.

[00:32:16] Scott: Okay but has it in it?

[00:32:17] Chris: Yep. Actually, it makes sense. I'm going to Skype you the keyword. But it makes sense given the way that you would search for this product.

[00:32:28] Scott: So with that being said, I would still leave the main keyword, garlic press as my broad to continue to go out there and reach these keywords because it's going to target that too but it's going to also branch that out. But I'd rather put more money on that term because it's getting more impressions, it's getting more targeted clicks leading to a sale and I would get rid of all of the ones that are kind of like ones that you might have scraped right off the bat. And the only reason why I'm saying to do that now is because you're trying to limit the amount of money you're spending.

So I'd rather take that money that I'm willing to spend and really concentrate on the ones that I know are really, really going to help me rank for that keyword. That's what I'm saying. But I'm not saying that if you have the budget, you shouldn't be out there testing multiple keywords. Yes, I'm saying that. But if you have five keywords, ten keywords and you want to take that $25 spend, it's going to focus on those… It's not going to take that $25 and spread out among 100 keywords. It's going to really focus on those and really reach more phrases and other search terms from those broad terms that you've got in there if that makes sense. Hopefully, it does.

[00:33:41] Chris: It does.

[00:33:42] Scott: So, all right, Chris. I think we did good here. I didn't know where this was going to lead. I think if you can get your margins better by looking at your supplier or asking your supplier finding the shipping… Find a way to get your shipping down, then I think that you're going to be fine. I just think it's going to be number one, figuring out if you can get your cost down. Number two I think from here, you probably have to lower your price a little bit… And I think he said it was like twenty five something at least $24.99. Like you got to go below the $25. The $25 is just going to seem higher to people. So make it $24.99 or maybe $23.95 whatever. And then from there test that. That could make a huge difference even using your pay-per-click. But again, we want to get sales. And then the other thing is I’d reach out to influencers in this space there's going to be tons, I know the space. So there's going to be tons and reach out and say, “Hey, would you mind testing out my product and just…”

[00:34:47] Chris: “…And give them a try?”

[00:34:48] Scott: Give it a try and give me your honest opinion on it. And also if you could shoot a quick video on it or write a blog post about it that, would be awesome. And someone that's got a good size audience is going to get you reach and is going to drive sales. It's going to happen. The one little side note, I would say anybody that you do that with, let them know also that they should be using their affiliate link as an associate through Amazon and that will also make them say, “Oh, wow. Well, if I do this I'll get a percentage of the sales that you get through your things. So just a little side note just to make it a little bit more interesting and exciting for them they will make some money.

I mean most bloggers and YouTubers also know that stuff. But just put it out that you want them to also benefit from this as well. But I think that's the answer. And then building your own list. If you're going to stay in this market, which I think this is a great market but if you do, there's tons you can do in this market, you can build a list very easily. Again guys, if you have not watched our replay of our workshop where we show you exactly how we've done it over and over again, and you guys can do it too it's literally step by step theamazingseller.com/buildlist. theamazingseller.com/buildlist and then from there you guys can see exactly what we're talking about and build that list.

And then you’re ready to then push this product. And your product could be part of the bundle that you do in the contest. Maybe you can even include three of them and then something else that's even more value. You get that value to be over $100. So I think I think you're in a good place. I think that as long as you can get the cost down, I think you could definitely, definitely do this. The signs are pointing to go for me and I think that it will work. So, Chris, you have any last thoughts before we wrap this up?

[00:36:29] Chris: Yeah, I'm actually going to disagree with you. Well, not necessarily disagree with you for a minute.

[00:36:32] Scott: Oh, you want to fight fo you?

[00:36:34] Chris: I will fight you. You're much larger than I am and poorly for me. You talked about, dropping the price point. I would say he needs to test the price point.

[00:36:45] Scott: Well, that's kind of what I meant. But if you want to argue, we can argue.

[00:36:48] Chris: You know at $24.99, you're not that much different from $25 you know $25.49 or whatever it is. So test that. But I would also test it at the $29.99 price point where the other people who are selling the most similar product are. Because one of the things that happens, and this is something that you and I have talked about, and this happened you recently. You raised the price and it did not affect sales but it actually just gave us the margin, is lower priced products have a lower perceived value. And so if I'm looking for something specific and in this market, I would be looking for something very specific. I personally would fall victim to the “it sells for more, so it must be better” mindset. Because I don't want the cheapest thing in this market. I want a more expensive product because of the perceived value that's there.

So it would be an interesting test and I'm hoping that even if you only sold the same number that you're selling now at $29, at least you're making some money but I would test it both ways for sure. So that was kind of a big thing. I do think that there is absolutely room and demand for this product. I think this is something that if you get to the first page that you will be successful with as long as you drive it to that first page. Just know that you're not necessarily going to make money during that drive. But if you can get it there and you can lock it in then you have a lot of places where you can make money.

If you're going to get on that first page and sell consistently, even if you're only making the like 89 cents in profit that you were making now, you'd be making money. But talk to that supplier, see what the breaking points are to bring that cost per unit down. And if you have to order 1,000 instead of 200 to do that on your next order, but you know that you're going to sell 300 a month, that would be worth the time, energy, and effort. The other thing that I would do is, I would get a few different shipping quotes and see what it is because I think when we did the math Scott, it worked out to like $10 a kilo. For our American friends that's 2.2 pounds which broke down to right around $5 per product.

[00:38:53] Chris: Honestly, that shouldn't really cost you much more than six or seven on the high end for air shipping. And so I would talk to that supplier and see if you can get a couple of different quotes from different people. And if they won't, then reach directly out to your DHL or FedEx and see if they can get you a better quote even though you're not necessarily going to get like a bulk discount or a volume discount on that first order. But it would be worth doing. And that's going add… If we drop that from $5 to $3 let's just say we move it from $10 to $6 per kilo that gives us an additional $1.50 to $2 in margin per product, which is insane.

I mean you're tripling your margin there basically just by doing that even if you don't get a pricing break from your supplier. And those little things really do add up especially if you're in the situation where you're in, where you're kind of at a break even point even if you are selling. So those would be kind of the steps that I would take. I would drive it to the first page, I would talk to my supplier and I would see where it takes me from there. But if you get to that first page, you are going to sell in this market.

[00:40:01] Scott: And again, I've been looking through the listing as you were talking, images are spot on. I mean they did a really, really good job with the images. The packaging is spot on, everything about this is spot on. The reviews, over 70 reviews. All five star. So I mean everything is pointing to go. The issue is right now, you don't have enough sales to rank.

And also maybe you thinking to yourself, “I can't really push this because I'm not making a profit on each unit that I sell right now.” I think if you can get past that, and get yourself ranked, and get this thing seen, I think we're going to sell them. I honestly do. I think this looks like a great, great product. The listing is fully optimized, the benefits are calling out in in the bullets. I don't know Chris, now than more I’m looking even at the pictures and everything. Everything else there looks spot on. So, all signs are pointing to go for me and with the depth demand that we've seen, I think the product itself is great, and I think you've already proven that with the reviews and stuff that you've already received, and the feedback and all that stuff.

So I think it's just the price point and then from there as far… I say price point how much you're buying it for, you know the cost of the goods. And then again, like Chris said and you know definitely I would just test and I think that's all I was saying was, do you want to test the price? I do think in the beginning I would just reduce the price and see what happens because you've already been higher. But again, that I would test it on the opposite end of it I would say, “Let me try $29.95 and see what happens, who knows?” And then you can play around with that. But right now, it's about getting sales. So however you are going to do that, that's all you should be focused on because everything else looks it's already there, like you're done.

So anyway, Chris I think that's going to wrap it up. This was a good call. I wasn't sure where it was going to lead but I'm actually excited about this. I think if they take what we just talked about and they implement that, oh my gosh, I want to hear a report back because I think this is a great product in a great space, and I think it's got legs. I think it could definitely do really, really well.

[00:42:10] Chris: So Scott, a question for you.

[00:42:12] Scott: Yeah, sure.

[00:42:12] Chris: And I think I know the answer to this based on the last statement. If you saw this Jungle Scout screenshot, and obviously we're not going to launch this product because someone shared it with us, but if you just stumbled across this, would you launch this product?

[00:42:28] Scott: Yeah, I actually would because I think everything there that I just went over is… I just kind of went through my own little kind of like, “If I was going to launch this, this is what I'd be doing. This is what I’m looking for.” I just did it in just real time. And then if someone handed me this product and said, “Hey, everything's all done for you. Here it is.” Game over. To me, that's definitely. And now that we're building lists inside of markets, I would build this out to be a brand.

[00:42:53] Chris: And my biggest concern here would be the cost per unit, right? But we know we can bring it down not because the shipping we paid is high, not just because of that but because there's people selling it for $13, $17, $19. So there obviously is another way to source this that I would be able to kind of take advantage of. Even if it was only $7 or $8 profit and not $10, it would still be a product that I would absolutely kind of move to the next stage.

[00:43:22] Scott: Yeah, Absolutely. Now everything to me is pointing to, yes, for me as long as I can get the cost of goods down which I believe I could. So that would be my answer. It doesn't look like it's overly competitive. Review numbers are low for the most part that I can compete with then you're already there. Some of those that are already selling 400 to 500 a month that you have more reviews than some of them. So I like what I'm seeing, I would be saying, yes on this one. Does that answer your question, Chris?

[00:43:54] Chris: It does, indeed.

[00:43:55] Scott: Cool. Let's wrap this baby up. All right guys. I want to remind you guys the show notes can be found at theamazingeeller.com/377, and you can grab all the show notes, the transcripts, links maybe even a screenshot. I'm going to probably grab the screenshot, I'll blurt some stuff out at least you guys can see what we were looking at as far as depth and demand, and all that stuff. So that's it, Chris.

Let's go ahead and wrap this up for good. Guys remember as always I’m here for you, I believe in you and I am rooting for you but you have to, you have… Come on say it with me, say it loud, say it proud, Chris is going to say it with me today on the count of three. One, two, three, “Take action.” Have an awesome, amazing day guys and I’ll see you right back here on the next episode.

[END]

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