Podcasts about amazon walmart

Today's guest Tim was invited to our community by a friend, and he says it's been life changing.   In 2024 Tim sold well over $500K at great margins by using the strategies we teach in the ProvenAmazonCourse.com training.   He's also attending our Amazon/Walmart seller event May 29-31st in Orlando FL - TheProvenConference.com. He attended last year as well and tells listeners, "It's a must attend event!" He came away with several practical strategies last year and he shares sever of them on today's episode.   If you can't make it to Orlando May 29-31st 2025, plan to attend VIRTUALLY - details at https://theprovenconference.com/livestream25/   Watch this epsiode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/VI8RFKOYOqU   Show note LINKS: ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated for free for life!   SilentJim.com/keepa - The service we use to help interpret all of the selling data. Keepa is discussed in depth on episode 369 at https://silentjim.com/podcast   Keepa Product Finder - Learn more about Keepa at SilentJim.com/360 (Note: This module has very recently been added to the ProvenAmazonCourse.com library along with all our other incredible Keepa training!)   Humnbird.com - They help sellers get established on Amazon.com (sell in the US from anywhere in the world) They specialize in everything from Intellectual Property, Trademarks, Patents, Corporation Setup to Branding, Design and Marketing. They offer a tax service, too. We recommend their affordable systems and solutions giving you everything you need for your wholesale and private label business even overseas!   TheProvenConference.com - Join 100's of sellers at our upcoming May conference in Orlando May 29-31st   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 82,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   Today's guest Tim Dorri

Today's guest is the CEO of one of the largest software companies serving Amazon sellers. There are 500 employees at threecolts, and Yoda Yee manages all of it!   He has a unique perspective on the momentum and direction of the Amazon selling opportunity. I had a great time discussing with him the current trends, challenges and favorable developments that all sellers should be aware of.   He's a big sponsor of our upcoming TheProvenConference.com event in Orlando as well as one of the few events he attends - that's how much he loves Amazon resellers!   We both agree that we are about to enter an incredible time of opportunity and growth for all Amazon resellers. The same conditions that were in place during covid are now presenting themselves again.   If you're not aware, one of the greatest two-year periods in all of e-commerce happened during covid.   Many sellers in our community made millions. The good news is, there's no disease this time, but the same market conditions are presenting themselves.   If you understand the game the way we explain it today, you will be positioned to do very well the next 2 to 5 years. Enjoy today's conversation with my friend Yoda Yee CEO of threecolts.   If you're ready to get started get into the ProvenAmazonCourse.com course - we will step you through it assuming you know NOTHING.   Watch today's episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/iokvzvFtKA8   Show note LINKS: ThreeColts.com - Yoda Yee the CEO of threecolts is our guest today Article by Yoda about the beneficial effect of tariffs in Amazon/Walmart reselling : https://www.threecolts.com/blog/trump-tariffs-reshaping-ecommerce/   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025! We've secured a fantastic room rate of only $109 at a gorgeous location! This event was recently voted the #1 event for RESELLERS in international voting!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 - Our pre-conference workshop titled Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator. Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in Orlando in May!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 82,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!                   Guest: Yoda Yee with ThreeColts.com

Struggling to understand where your profits are going—even with a strong ROI? In this episode of Silent Sales Machine Radio: Coach's Corner, Brian and Robin Joy unpack one of the most common pain points Amazon sellers face: Why am I not taking home more money? Inside this episode: A breakdown of gross vs. net profit (and why the difference matters) What overhead is REALLY costing you The dangers of depending on a single "unicorn" ASIN (The Anchor ASIN Trap!) How to scale without burning out Real-life coaching insights to help you move the needle They also share personal stories about navigating steep learning curves, building smart systems, and why diversity in your ASINs is key to long-term success.   Whether you're just getting started or trying to 10x your Amazon FBA business, this conversation will give you practical strategies and fresh motivation.   Special guest at the conclusion of today's show, Jeff Schick of JeffSchick.com answers the question: "What should I do if I get a 'cease and desist email or letter' from a brand I'm selling?"   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Gmk1taVkzM4   Show note LINKS: SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   https://SilentJim.com/kickstart - If you want a shortcut to learning all you need to get started then get the Proven Amazon Course and go through Kickstart.                        

Amazon to Amazon flips are HEATING UP!   You can source right on Amazon and sell right back on Amazon as a REPLENS seller! Today i talk to a coach on our team who recently did $60K in a month at 22net on AtoA flips!   We are leading the charge as well in talking to Keepa to integrate new features that make flips easier to find and jump on!   Today's guest is emerging as yet another incredible, successful leader in our community. He's traveling the world, doing work he loves, supporting ministries he believes in, meeting his Filipino VAs and creating great insights for our seller community!   Today's episode is all about this exciting and wide open opportunity!   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/hGErrKN8uKE   Show note LINKS: My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   ProvenWholesaleSourcing.com (this training is included in the ProvenAmazonCourse.com library!)   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   SilentJim.com/1000 - Step by step instructions for your first $1,000 day selling on Amazon assuming you're brand new : https://silentjim.com/podcast/episode-890-student-has-his-first-1k-day-just-a-couple-weeks-into-coaching/   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   ProvenAmazonCourse.com/a2a - The course about Amazon to Amazon flips coming Summer 2025, or come learn about it at the TheProvenConference.com event in late May!   TheProvenConference.com - Come meet our guest today, Ryan Otwell and 100s of other high achieving warriors of ecommerce in Orlando FL May 29-31! Scholarship avaiable!   TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   Today's guest: Ryan Otwell  

Can you believe our e-commerce training podcast is now at 1,000 episodes and nearly 7million downloads on iTunes?   Today I invited prominent and successful leaders from our community to join me to talk about the fact that we are just getting started!   The future of e-commerce and Amazon / Walmart selling has NEVER looked brighter and we tell you why.   We spend time together today sharing inspirational and motivational stories as well as our predictions on where things are going in our industry.   There's never been a better time to be a business building Warrior and on today's episode we give you so many reasons why that's true. Celebrate our 1,000th episode with a panel of great leaders from the ProvenAmazonCourse.com leadership team!   Watch this epsiode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Yh_iDxvF5KI   Show note LINKS: My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 81,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   SilentJim.com/1000 - Step by step instructions for your first $1,000 day selling on Amazon assuming you're brand new : https://silentjim.com/podcast/episode-890-student-has-his-first-1k-day-just-a-couple-weeks-into-coaching/   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.      

The weekend episodes of our podcast contain important announcements as well as a great introduction to the community for anyone who is new to our community.   Important and timely announcement   Our popular course Selling above the Buy Box is on sale now for a whopping 94% off! This course shows you how to be the highest price on popular ASINs and win sales! SilentJim.com/abb   https://TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025! We've secured a fantastic room rate of only $109 at a gorgeous location! This event was recently voted the #1 event for RESELLERS in international voting!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! We can't wait to see you there!   https://ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 Our pre-conference workshop titled Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator. Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in Orlando in May!   Show note LINKS:   Get to https://SilentiJim.com/free11 and grab a copy of the book that started it all!   https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   https://ProvenAmazonCourse.com The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   https://SilentJim.com/thesystem Check out the webinar and lock in the re-launch price! The complete Amazon reseller and Walmart workflow software that minimized the staff required to run your Amazon reselling business and helps the owner (you) become a hands free business owner! The System automates Amazon reselling.        

On today's episode we meet a new ProvenAmazonCourse.com student who has only been selling for a couple of months.   He's finding great inventory already based on the "above by box" strategy that so many new and experienced sellers are loving lately.   Finding products: One example he shares is a $2 item (he easily sources it at full retail price) that he's selling consistently for $16 as THE HIGHEST PRICED SELLER on the ASIN with 12 other sellers! You'll hear him explain how it works on this episode.   Ungating: He is seeing 90% of his ungating requests succeed with a a single button click, and he shares his simple strategy as to how it works.   He's also planning to attend our conference in May and he shares his excitement about that. Details on that event can be found at the proven conference.com. We spend some time as well discussing getting ungated as a new seller.   Check out our episode sponsor Profit Cyclops - Realtime Order Tracking and Profit Calculation Easy to view dashboards and charts in days, weeks and months. A staple to your everyday operations, everything that Amazon misses to show you.   Watch this episod eon our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/8QcMJt0v5uQ   Show note LINKS: SilentJim.com/bookacall - Want to work with a great coach on our team? Where you live DOES NOT matter - we have successful STUDENTS and COACHES all over the world!   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   SilentJim.com/mistakes - The most common mistakes made by new sellers and how to avoid them (a post in our free Facebook group)   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   3PMercury - SilentJim.com/thesystem - The seller automation tool that allowed our student Khang to build a $3million REPLENS business using a team of two people that ran his entire business!   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11      

The weekend episodes of our podcast contain important announcements as well as a great introduction to the community for anyone who is new to our community.   The video for the several posts in our Facebook group https://youtu.be/oYAEBFCk4iM   Show note links:   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 81,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world! TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   SilentJim.com/1000 - Step by step instructions for your first $1,000 day selling on Amazon assuming you're brand new  https://silentjim.com/podcast/episode-890-student-has-his-first-1k-day-just-a-couple-weeks-into-coaching/   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.                                

Our latest Amazon selling strategies taught in the ProvenAmazonCourse.com are getting real results - even for the newest of inexperienced newbies!   This episode is super short, but you'll get inspired by it!   Over this past weekend we saw LOADS of new ProvenAmazonCourse.com students posting their sales results - it's mind blowing! Everything from skeptical newbies getting their first few profitable sales to sellers celebrating their first $1,000 day... the stories are popping in CONSTANTLY!   The latest strategies we've been teaching are BLOWING MINDS - we're really onto something special and the proof is rolling in daily!   Show note LINKS:  The youtube video referenced in this episode: https://youtu.be/6rtbnckGGnM   SilentJim.com/1000 - From $0 to your first $1000 day on Amazon   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, we can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated for free for life    

In this energized episode of Coach's Corner, Brian and Robin Joy dive into what really drives success in the Amazon FBA world—and it's not what you might expect.   Drawing powerful lessons from the "Pottery Paradox" and the "Bamboo Effect," they reveal why repetition, not perfection, is the secret to building a thriving business.   You'll learn: Why testing more ASINs beats searching for the “perfect” one The power of velocity, capital protection, and profit potential How to avoid “lighting $20 bills on fire” What the Ambassador Program brings to the Proven Conference Why preparation > planning—and how football coaches do it best   If you've been stuck lurking, waiting for the right moment to start, this episode is your sign to throw that first dart!   Watch this epsiode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/8fLVevUTagQ   Show note LINKS: TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 - Our pre-conference workshop titled Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator. Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in Orlando in May!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! Hurry, wee can't guarantee open spots. Click the link and fill out a quick questionare and we'll get back to you.   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated for free for life!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Our guest today benefited tremendously from the coaching he's received! Inquire about your coaching options today! Let's connect!   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   3PMercury - SilentJim.com/thesystem - The seller automation tool that allowed our student Khang to build a $3million REPLENS business using a team of two people that ran his entire business!      

"If I were in charge I'd make some big changes." You don't have to look far to find plenty of ideas from sellers on the topic of "how to make Amazon selling better", but we have to keep in mind that Amazon has multiple parties to keep in mind! There's the shopper (they are first ultimately and rightfully so) Then there's Amazon's own best interest (profitability, risk management, shareholders etc) ...and then there's the seller last but no least! I for one am so grateful for the Amazon reseller opportunity -it's provided incredibly consistent opportunities for 10s of thousands of families including my own and the future is very bright, but... Of all the ideas for improvement that are swirling around, I think I've found three that are great (with no downsides) for ALL THREE parties! The ideas are: Eliminate the suppressed buy boxes Show shoppers the fastest delivery option on ASINs with many sellers Show sellers more data in regards to understocked shelf space in the warehouse network Today's episode unpacks these ideas. If you're ready to get on the path to building a great business online, it's time to get into the ProvenAmazonCourse.com training!   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/3h0kwGpWBfU   Check out our episode sponsor: Profit Cyclops - Realtime Order Tracking and Profit Calculation Easy to view dashboards and charts in days, weeks and months. A staple to your everyday operations, everything that Amazon misses to show you.   Show note LINKS: SilentJim.com/bookacall - Book a FREE call here to discuss our offers including coaching, legends and ProvenAmazonCourse.com course   TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 - Our pre-conference workshop titled Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator. Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in Orlando in May!   https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! We can't wait to see you there!   SilentJim.com/bb70-  Learn about the "above buy box" strategy FREE   SilentJim.com/thesystem  - (aka as 3P Mercury) - The complete workflow software we created on our team with the help of 200 beta testers. "The System" automates your Amazon reselling/wholesale business the same way Khang (the creator) automated his $3million reselling business and made it HANDS FREE!   My Silent Team Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam 100% FREE! Join 80000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model with two courses available on this topic alone. The PAC is updated free for life!      

The weekend episodes of our podcast contain important announcements as well as a great introduction to the community for anyone who is new to our community. Important and timely announcement   Important and timely announcement LINKS: Show note LINKS: https://TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025! We've secured a fantastic room rate of only $109 at a gorgeous location! This event was recently voted the #1 event for RESELLERS in international voting! https://TheProvenConference.com/scholarship - Join us FREE in Orlando the last three days of May 2025! Come attend the event that has been voted the #1 RESELLER event for Amazon/Walmart in the world! We can't wait to see you there! Get to https://SilentiJim.com/free11 and grab a free copy of the book that started it all! https://SilentJim.com/360 - The most comprehensive keepa training course you'll find is only $9 for a few days!   Show note LINKS:  My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   https://ProvenAmazonCourse.com The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   https://ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 Our pre-conference workshop titled Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator. Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in Orlando in May!   https://SilentJim.com/thesystem Check out the webinar and lock in the re-launch price! The complete Amazon reseller and Walmart workflow software that minimized the staff required to run your Amazon reselling business and helps the owner (you) become a hands free business owner! The System automates Amazon reselling.                

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Today's guest is a huge fan of "The System" (SilentJim.com/thesystem) and he's built a fantastic business in less than a year using the strategies he's learned from the ProvenAmazonCourse.com.   He's doing a wholesale model through a REPLENS lens using strategies learned from this podcast and our training inside the ProvenAmazonCourse.com, and he's finding even more streams of income helping brands navigate Amazon! He's able to do this because of the skill set he's developed so far as an Amazon seller!   You'll be encouraged and inspired by his insights and results!   Stick around for the last few minutes of the episode today to hear an update about "The System". The System (aka 3PMercury found at SilentJim.com/thesystem) is the software that completely automated Khang's $3 million replens business with 10,000 ASINs while requiring only a team of only 2 people! Hundreds of users are now using The System to successfully automate their ProvenAmazonCourse.com REPLENS businesses - and you can as well!    TODAY'S INSIGHT: The automation features and profit generating features of "The System" are popping in CONSTANTLY and it's all coming from a very special source of creativity - the USERS! Welcome to the first CROWD BUILT, full automation tool for Amazon/Walmart sellers!   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/yAS3zccpcfM   Show note LINKS:   Brendan last appeared on our show in episode 883: Firefighter with no experience in ecommerce now has a fantastic business thanks to ProvenAmazonCourse.com   3PMercury SilentJim.com/thesystem - The seller automation tool that allowed our student Khang to build a $3million REPLENS business using a team of two people that ran his entire business!   JeffSchick.com - Our legal advisor on the team! Jeff and his staff are an excellent resource for those sticky spots we all have in business!   SilentJim.com/bb70 - See numerous examples of the "above buy box" strategy for Amazon sellers!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Our guest today benefited tremendously from the coaching he's received! Inquire about your coaching options today! Let's connect!   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated for free for life!   ProvenWholesaleSourcing.com - Wholesale training with an expert who has sold about $40million on Amazon! NOTE: This training is now FREE inside the ProvenAmazonCourse.com library!   Today's guest: Brendan D'Anna

Are you looking for SUSTAINED success in your online business? I've got a great podcast episode for you today if so.   With over 22 years experience coaching nearly 10,000 students in e-commerce training organization, as well as having influenced and trained many more in various courses and conferences, I've definitely noticed some glaringly obvious patterns emerge among those who succeed and those who ultimately bail out.   It's my top 10 list of rules for SUSTAINED (long term) success in e-commerce.   Here's the list: Start with something proven, low risk, stable, systemiz-able and highly scalable Fail often but big risks just aren't necessary, so don't take big risks Pursue these key relationships constantly Don't start with multiple streams, but that's where you should head eventually There are 10 possible pivots for every one challenge you face Tell your story - it's not a "hustle" The elusive "magic button" doesn't really exist, but there's something better Embrace the fact that YOU are the bottleneck. Your leadership skills are the throttle. Only do the things that ONLY YOU can do Follow PROFITS not PASSIONS if you want to survive   Stick around for a couple minutes at the end of the episode to hear an update about the kind of low cost insurance you should have as an ecommerce/Amazon/Walmart seller! We spend a few minutes with Ashlin Hadden of http://ecom-insure    Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/hy2cfz-MV-k   Show note LINKS: TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word “free” to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 80,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated for free for life!    

In this episode of The Clear the Shelf Podcast, Chris Grant and Chris Racic chat with Sarah, aka Arbitrage Avenue, about how she built multiple income streams across platforms like Walmart, Amazon, and TikTok. She mostly does retail arbitrage for Amazon and Walmart. But, she also creates content for TikTok affiliates, the Amazon Influencer Program and gets paid to create user-generated content (UGC). Sarah shares the strategies behind her success and how she juggles multiple revenue streams. What you'll learn: • How Sarah started selling on Walmart and Amazon, and her journey to seven figures • The pros and cons of Walmart vs. Amazon for arbitrage sellers • Why UGC (User-Generated Content) is a game-changer for online entrepreneurs • Practical tips for using tools like ScanPower to source for Walmart and Amazon simultaneously • How Sarah scaled her business while staying true to her family-first values Sarah dropped tons of gems in this episode and gives actionable tips on scaling your e-commerce business, diversifying income streams, and leveraging platforms like Walmart, Amazon, and TikTok. Follow Sarah Here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arbitrage.avenue Twitter: https://x.com/ArbitrageAvenue FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/454861203557022 -------------------- RESOURCES FOR YOU:

What are the big trends in Amazon seller policies and enforcement? On today's all new episode we spend some time diving into the latest news in the world of Amazon seller suspensions, policy enforcement and trends that all sellers should know about. It's a sit down chat with Jeff Schick (JeffSchick.com) - the most popular Amazon/Walmart seller policy expert and lawyer in our seller community. Among other things we talk about Bundles Section 3 reviews Proper sourcing BOI report (what's that?! You need to know)   There's plenty of good news - Amazon is becoming increasingly predictable and seems to "get it right" in the end more and more often when it comes to policy enforcement for sellers! Having a healthy selling account has never been a more valuable asset than it is now, and as under-informed or sellers of bad intent continue to unknowingly violate simple policies, the future looks very bright for well informed sellers who follow the rules! If you'd like to learn to do Amazon the RIGHT WAY follow the path we've laid out in the ProvenAmazonCourse.com ! At the end of today's episode we also hear a Walmart seller success story that will inspire you! We also talk about automating the repricing of your Walmart inventory with Flash Pricer SilentJim.com/flash   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/reiykpTL4DU   Show note LINKS: SilentJim.com/flash  - The special offer from FLASHPRICER for our listening audience. Make repricing automating on Walmart! SilentJim.com/bookacall - Book a FREE call here to discuss our offers including coaching, legends and ProvenAmazonCourse.com course My Silent Team Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam 100% FREE! Join 78,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world! ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model with two courses available on this topic alone. The PAC is updated free for life! TheProvenConference.com - Our May 2025 event - plan to join 100s of listeners to this show in Orlando May 29-31st, 2025! JeffSchick.com Insurance for sellers: http://Ecom.Insure File your BOI report: https://fincen.gov/boi Today's guest Jeff Schick

In der heutigen #kassensturz Folge, unseren Marketing & eCommerce News, geht es unter anderem um folgende Themen: (00:00) Intro (03:40) Google soll Chrome verkaufen (8:03) Perplexity launcht GenAI-Marktplatz “Perplexity Shopping” (23:03) Fake News zu Produktsicherheit - Temu vs. Amazon (31:49) Anker launcht sein Produktangebot auf Temu (36:55) Studie: Akzeptanz & Nutzung von SHEMU (42:09) Amazon launcht Amazon Haul (45:30) Single's Day 2024 – China Zahlen (49:58) TikTok launcht Affiliate-Partnerschaften mit Shoppable Links, u.a. mit LTK, Walmart, Target & Temu (54:39) TikTok meldet Marken für Buy Now Pay Later Payment-Lösung & Tourismus-App an (57:42) Neue Amazon Seller & FBA Gebühren (59:04) Walmart Earnings (1:00:54) PinDuoDuo Earnings (1:02:11) Klarna geht an die Börse (1:02:49) Meta beugt sich EU Kommission und passt Werbeanzeigen & Abo-Modelle an Quellen Google soll Chrome verkaufen https://retail-news.de/usa-google-statement-abspaltung-chrome/ Perplexity launcht GenAI-Marktplatz “Perplexity Shopping” https://excitingcommerce.de/2024/11/18/perplexity-startet-perplexity-shopping-mit-eigenem-checkout/ https://www.perplexity.ai/shopping Fake News zu Produktsicherheit - Temu vs. Amazon https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/temu-kritik-kinderarbeit-umwelt-black-week-lux.MBsPXxxtnwq8UH3FCiwk9y?reduced=true https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jenslindner24_temu-und-die-gpsr-streng-aber-sicher-activity-7262743676357865473-7IsZ Anker launcht Produktangebot auf Temu https://www.temu.com/-official-store-m-635517727247875.html Studie: Akzeptanz & Nutzung von SHEMU https://okt.to/g4TFfX https://www.linkedin.com/posts/appinio_amazon-shopper-report-2024-activity-7265319657228685314-U-yK Amazon launcht Amazon Haul https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/affordable-products-amazon-20-dollars-and-under Single's Day 2024 – China Zahlen https://insideretail.asia/2024/11/12/more-shoppers-higher-spend-mark-chinas-singles-day/ TikTok launcht Affiliate-Partnerschaften mit Shoppable Links, u.a. mit LTK, Walmart, Target & Temu https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/12/tiktok-is-integrating-with-influencer-shopping-app-ltk-videos-show/ https://www.modernretail.co/technology/tiktok-is-quietly-testing-product-links-in-posts-as-it-looks-to-boost-its-reputation-for-shopping https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tiktok-creators-rejoice-affiliate-product-links-here-lindsey-gamble-zrtfe/ TikTok meldet Marken für Buy Now Pay Later Payment-Lösung & Tourismus-App an https://www.semafor.com/article/11/13/2024/tiktoks-new-trademark-filings-suggest-its-doubling-down-on-its-us-business Neue Amazon Seller & FBA Gebühren https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/G201411300 Walmart Earnings https://finance.yahoo.com/news/walmart-raises-guidance-after-another-strong-earnings-report-ahead-of-the-holiday-season-142606716.html PinDuoDuo Earnings https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3287600/temu-owner-pdd-sees-10-plunge-pre-market-trading-despite-44-revenue-growth Klarna geht an die Börse https://tech.eu/2024/11/13/klarna-filles-for-us-ipo/ Meta beugt sich EU Kommission und passt Werbeanzeigen & Abo-Modelle an https://hi.omr.com/deutschlands-m%C3%A4chtigster-b%C3%A4nker Max & Kristina auf LinkedIn > Max Rottenaicher > Kristina Mertens Credits Logo Design: Naim Solis Intro & Jingles: Kurt Woischytzky Fotos: Stefan Grau Intro-Video: Tim Solle

We're back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10's Sr Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10's newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. TikTok Search Ads Campaign launch in U.S. https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-search-ads-campaign-launch-us-446927 Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Brands https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tariffs-targeting-chinese-e-commerce-could-dampen-demand Google Search Tests Shopping E-Commerce Card https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-e-commerce-card-card-38105.html Experience Amazon Accelerate 2024 on demand https://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/amazon-accelerate-on-demand-content Target Circle Week 2024 https://www.today.com/shop/target-circle-week-details-dates-deals-2024-rcna171858 Lastly, in our training tip of the week, Carrie walks us through how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode labels to give to your factories. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie covers: 00:51 - TikTok Search Ads 02:48 - New Chinese Tariffs 05:59 - Google Search Tests 07:09 - Accelerate on Demand 07:50  - Target Circle Week 09:39 - Walmart Lending 10:14 - Walmart Repricer Dash 11:14 - Helium 10 New Features 13:07 - Easy Barcodes ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: TikTok shop ads launch in the US new potential tariffs targeting Chinese e-commerce sellers, and Amazon, Walmart and Target are battling it out for deals in October. All of this and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz. Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the news stories that are going on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We highlight the latest new feature alerts from Helium 10, and we review a training tip of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Now, today, our host is going to be Keri Miller. So, Keri, take it away and let us know what's buzzing. Carrie Miller: Okay. So the first story is that TikTok search ads campaigns have launched in the US, and I'll go ahead and show the article here. It's basically allowing for keyword based search ads that target users directly in the search results. Now if you're a TikTok user, you know a lot of the ads actually come on your For you page when you're kind of scrolling. So it's kind of a more generic approach. But now sellers can actually target keywords when consumers are actually searching in TikTok for something specific. So this is potentially stepping up competition with Google Ads, as TikTok is becoming a go-to search engine, in addition to becoming a social media platform. So let's go ahead and take a look at this article. If we scroll down a little bit, it says previously ads on the TikTok search page were more generic, but now brands can tailor their ads to align with specific search behaviors. Now it goes on to further say why this matters. It says that TikTok has a growing role as a search engine for younger users. 57% of users use the app's search function, according to internal TikTok data, and this new feature lets you capture attention at critical moments of intent. TikTok's move could threaten Google's dominance, as younger users are increasingly using social media for search instead of traditional search engines. So, if you recall, last week Bradley actually did talk about this on the Weekly Buzz and he said that there's a report that says over 50% of Gen Zers are going to be shopping on TikTok for the holiday season. So that's very interesting and very good numbers if you really wanted to start targeting on TikTok. And let's talk about the actual numbers of these actual ads. TikTok's testing shows that combining search ads with in-feed ads boost conversion by 20%, with users who don't engage with an ad initially more likely to interact with after seeing a related ad in the search. So that's very interesting information. So definitely something to consider when you are going into Q4 and wanna really boost your sales this holiday season. Carrie Miller: Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the next article Now. The next article is interesting and it's titled Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Could Damp Demand. Okay, so this is definitely something that is gonna be very interesting for a lot of e-commerce sellers because, as I don't know if anyone remembers if you've been watching I actually mentioned that Amazon is launching a direct-to-consumer program for Chinese sellers to sell directly to consumers in the US through the Amazon platform, and I mentioned this might make some US sellers a bit upset, you know, because a lot of the small parcels they're not taxed the same, you don't have to deal with the same logistics charges and things like that. So you know this basically gives Chinese sellers a much higher margins because of the lack of tariffs. You know, no warehouse and distribution costs associated with the traditional kind of container imports. There's a lot of other things that kind of go in with these small parcels. I know, for example, me as a consumer, I did order something on TikTok that I thought was gonna be great quality and it was actual garbage. It actually was shipped directly from China through customs. So really kind of is an interesting you know thing that we should really be considering for consumer protection as well as well. As you know, for US sellers, when you're providing quality, then it's going to help boost you a little bit more because it's going to kind of close off this way of kind of things that are come low quality coming into the US without having to even pay those taxes or being searched. Carrie Miller: So in this article, if I scroll down here, it says the White House this month said it would soon tighten eligibility and increase information requirements for low value imports that qualify for duty free status in an effort to prevent businesses from evading duty payments. It goes on to say a little bit further down it says the proposal is expected to result in higher consumer prices for small shipments. So that actually could be a better thing for US sellers who are offering the quality. But then if we go down further, this is really where it gets interesting for the consumer. Let's scroll all the way down. It says. Over the last 10 years the number of shipments entering the US claiming the de minimis exemption has exploded from about 140 million to more than 1 billion a year, according to the CBP figures, and the US is on track to import nearly 1.5 billion parcels in the current fiscal year, 4 million per day, and that is actually going to end on September 30th. Carrie Miller: The overwhelming volume of parcel shipments has made it difficult for us customs and other agencies to enforce trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and clothing made from forced labor from entering into the country illegally. That's kind of an interesting thing to to take a look at, especially as a consumer. You know, like I said, I actually it was like a hair oil that I ordered from TikTok and the quality was just garbage and it smelled funky. So you know, this is a consumer protection issue. You think should you know that shouldn't be coming into the US, are coming into the US because there's just an overwhelming amount. So this is definitely something that you know hopefully will happen and you, you know we can continue as our. You know, other sellers who are providing quality products can kind of beat out these sellers that are not doing the high quality products. Carrie Miller: Okay, the next article that we have here is about Google. Google is doing search tests in the shopping e-commerce card. So if we take a look at this article, you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you know Google's testing. It's using its top card format for shopping and ecommerce related queries and information and this shows product results with pricing on the left, with popular stores on the right and then some review content in the form of content and videos on the right side. So they're kind of moving maybe towards more video content and I'll scroll down a little bit more in this article because this is what it usually looks like, and you can probably Google this right now and still see this. But we've got, you know, the actual, the product with a picture and the price, as well as the reviews, whereas I think they're kind of moving more towards the kind of video reviews, since a lot of people are into seeing that kind of stuff on social media, so they might be kind of testing this out to see how they can compete with social media, and I think that's a really smart move on the part of, you know, Google's, you know, just for Google, just because they are competing with these other social media platforms that are becoming more like search engines. Carrie Miller: All right, let's go into the next article, and that is basically, if you missed out, on Amazon Accelerate. I know a lot of people had FOMO because they didn't make it to Amazon Accelerate. You can actually experience it on demand. They are actually making all of the different sessions and everything that was recorded is available for on demand and it's for free. So you can just register, you can just download, you can just download all that stuff and kind of watch it as you're doing other things and, you know, just to kind of keep yourself up to date on the latest and greatest announcements from Amazon. So go ahead and register for that if you wanted to see some of those sessions and take advantage of that great content. Carrie Miller: And then next is another interesting thing and that is that Target is just launched their circle week Target Circle Week and it's going to be for seven days in October, from October 6. Okay, so it's starting October 6. And this is basically, you know, a seasonal seven day sales event that is going to feature holiday essentials, seasonal favorites, all this, that kind of stuff. What's really interesting is that you know, because of the dates, you know, this is going to be competing with Amazon, which is the eighth and the ninth, and then also Walmart that is going to be starting up that that week as well. So it's going to be interesting because Walmart starting up a little bit after Amazon. But if you're selling on target could be kind of interesting Because you might not get the buy box if you are selling at a discounted rate on target the few days before the big Prime Day event happens. Carrie Miller: So that's kind of an interesting thing to consider how you're going to be balancing out the pricing. And then there's also Walmart, because everyone wants to make sure that we have, you know, price parity along, you know, on all of the platforms, and that could cause you to lose the buy box. So could maybe be something to consider if you want to tighten up your strategy with any discounts or make sure you have the same exact discount across the board, kind of even before the Prime Day deal event starts. That could be a strategy. So I'm curious to know if anyone knows a strategy to deal with this and what you maybe did last year. If you want to put that in the comments below, I would love to hear your thoughts on that, because I think that's going to be kind of a big issue, especially as more sellers are in on Target, on Walmart, on Amazon, on TikTok, on all the different platforms. So really need to strategize when it comes to these big deal days. Carrie Miller: Okay, and the next thing, I actually don't have an article to share, but Walmart actually has announced that they have some cash advances with discounted fees going into Q4. I think mostly to help prepare for the holiday rush and to help with working capital. Especially, you know, cash flow is kind of a really challenging thing for sellers. So Walmart is going to be making some capital available through Capital by Paraffin and Payoneer and so, if you're eligible, you can actually go into Seller Center and you can, you know, figure out how to kind of get access to that funding. I think it will actually kind of pop up in there if you are eligible for it, but if not, you can also message seller support and see if you're eligible for some of their funding. And then they also have a pricing insights dashboard and I think that this is going to be very helpful going into the holidays. It's basically going to help you regularly monitor your pricing throughout the holidays and that is, you know, just to make sure that you stay competitive, and it's going to help kind of give you an insight on the pricing insights dashboard. That gives you, you know, pricing metrics, metrics at the SKU level, to help you make good decisions If you need to kind of discount your products further or, you know, if you're in, you know, in good competition with other sellers. Um, the dashboard is actually going to be refreshed regularly so that you can act quickly to update an item pricing, either individually or in bulk, and the dashboard also gives you flexibility to add items to the repricer or make price updates in the dashboard without having to submit spec files. So they're making it easy and fast for you to kind of see what you need to do in terms of pricing and then make those changes as quickly as possible. So that's kind of the latest and greatest updated news for Walmart. Okay, so we have a new Helium 10 update, which is very exciting. Carrie Miller: If you are in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the UK markets, we are releasing keyword sales data in Cerebro, magnet, listing Builder, listing Analyzer, keyword Tracker, insights Dashboard and Product Launchpad for all of those countries. So again, those European countries are France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. So I'm going to show you what that actually looks like. So here is a picture of. This is actually the US market, but this is what it'll look like in any of those markets that I just mentioned. You're gonna be able to see the keyword sales in the dashboard. So in your insights dashboard, right when you log in, you'll also be able to see them in Cerebro. So this keyword sales data for, again, all those other markets in Europe the France, Germany, Spain, Italy, in the UK, you'll also be able to see it in Magnet, as you can see here. So we've got magnet right here. You can see the keyword sales right here and then listing. So this is listing analyzer and at the very bottom, where you see the keywords, you can now see the keyword sales there as well. At listing builder, now when you go to open competitor comparison, when you actually look at this, you can see the keyword sales here. So that's really helpful for you to kind of like basically decide which are the most important keywords based on the keyword sales when you do that little competitor listing comparison there. And then you can also see it in product launchpad. So when you have your product launchpad open, you can actually see the keyword sales for all those different keywords that you added into your product launchpad idea. There's definitely a lot of really good stuff in there If you are in those markets. Those are. Those are huge updates for us to give you that data, especially because it's going to help you to kind of make sure you're targeting the most important keywords that have, you know, the higher keyword sales, maybe lower search volumes. So definitely take a look at that if you're in those markets. Really, really helpful information. Carrie Miller: Next, I'm going to be showing you portals in Helium 10, I'm going to show you how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode label to give to your factory in China or other you know countries, and I'm going to walk you through the flow and show you how to do this. So the first thing you want to do is you want to log into Helium 10. And then you're going to go to this tools button at the very top and then we're going to go down and we're going to click on portals and then, once you're in portals, you're going to be able to see a bunch of different things, but what we're going to show you today is this barcode labels, and this is going to be how we're going to be able to create these labels for our factories. So click on new barcode and what you want to have in here is you want to have either an FN SKU, an ASIN or UPC code. I have a FNSKU here. Carrie Miller: I'm just going to paste in there, and then the next thing you want to do is you can put the product URL if you already have it launched, or you can create a custom product URL so you can put the product name, you can upload an image, you can say the condition, you can put the ASIN and the SKU in. But I'm just going to go and take our URL from Amazon here and I'm just going to go ahead and do it that way because it makes it a lot faster and then it's going to pull up all the information here so you can see it has the picture of the actual product it has, and then you can fill in the SKU. If it doesn't show up with the SKU, you can fill in your SKU there. But I'm just going to go ahead and hit save and continue and then we're going to look at the size. So you can actually choose the size, how you want to show it. You want to show it in inches, centimeters, millimeters. You can choose the different sizes here, and then you can do either portrait or landscape, and then hit save and continue and then you're going to choose the template. So I'm just going to choose this generic black one and since I already have I actually, in portals, have uploaded my logo here. Carrie Miller: You can see that we have all that information in here already and you can actually provide more information right here if you wanted to. Whatever it is that you want to type in there, if you need to, and then what you can do is hit save and finish, and then, if you want to download this, you can just hit the download button and then they we always recommend that you, you know, test these out before you send them. So make sure you test it out with a smartphone or you know any apps that you can scan any of these just to make sure that it's it works properly. And double, you know, always test before your mass produce, and then you can just download it and you'll see that as you download it here and there, it is right there. So that is basically super easy. How you can just create those little barcode labels. We made it super easy for you to do so go ahead and check that out If you haven't ever done that before. It makes it super fast and easy. Carrie Miller: Thank you all for joining me this week on the Weekly Buzz for all the latest and greatest news stories, as well as the Helium 10 updates and the training. We look forward to seeing you again next week. I do believe Bradley will be back next week for the Weekly Buzz, so we'll see you next week to see what's buzzing. Bye, everyone.

В этом выпуске у меня в гостях Ангелика Береговская, QA-инженер в компании AT&T. Ангелика поделилась своим уникальным опытом поиска работы и трудоустройства в сфере тестирования ПО в США. Мы обсудили ее путь от модели до QA-специалиста, процесс поиска работы через LinkedIn, и как неожиданный звонок в 10 вечера привел к получению оффера в AT&T всего за неделю. Ангелика рассказала о своем опыте работы в крупной компании, совмещении карьеры с материнством, и даже о проведении рабочей встречи через два часа после родов. Также были затронуты темы текущей ситуации на рынке труда для QA-специалистов, важности знания современных инструментов тестирования, и советы для тех, кто ищет работу в этой сфере в США. Ангелика Береговская (Angelika Beregovskaia) QA Engineer at AT&T LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelikaber/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/likapon $75,000 в год без опыта. Как заработать на Amazon и Walmart. Мария Голубева https://youtu.be/t7BVRxILMrw *** Записывайтесь на карьерную консультацию (резюме, LinkedIn, карьерная стратегия, поиск работы в США): https://annanaumova.com Онлайн курс "Идеальное резюме и поиск работы в США": https://go.mbastrategy.com/resumecoursemain Гайд "Идеальное американское резюме": https://go.mbastrategy.com/usresume Гайд "Как оформить профиль в LinkedIn, чтобы рекрутеры не смогли пройти мимо" (предзаказ): https://link.coursecreator360.com/widget/form/ObfVCQ2clIWTdNcQBAkf Мой Telegram-канал: https://t.me/prodcastUSA Мой Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prodcast.us/ ⏰ Timecodes ⏰ 0:00 Начало 4:18 Как пришла в QA? 9:31 Почему ты начала искать работу в 2023? 13:23 Где искала вакансии? 16:15 Как отбирала вакансии? Как откликалась? 21:50 Почему не адаптировала резюме? 24:20 Как проходили собеседования? 30:59 Как тебе позвонили из AT&T? Как проходило собеседование? 41:51 Как выглядит работа в AT&T? 45:16 Как отнеслись в компании к твоей беременности? 50:06 Про планы на будущее 53:17 Как сейчас выглядит рынок найма для QA? Школы QA в США 1:01:29 Что можешь пожелать тем, кто сейчас ищет работу в США?

EP320 - News, First Half Recap, Early Holiday Preview http://jasonandscot.com 0:23 Welcome Back After Hiatus 2:51 Upcoming Events in Retail 7:28 GroceryShop 16:02 Retail Growth Trends 21:28 Concerns for Holiday 2024 30:27 The De Minimis Provision 40:27 TikTok's Impact on E-commerce In this episode of The Jason and Scot Show, we discuss the current state of retail and e-commerce. We analyze macroeconomic factors impacting the retail landscape, noting a 3.4% growth in core retail and a maturation of e-commerce, dominated by giants like Amazon and Walmart. We address consumer sentiment heading into the holiday season and the potential influences of the upcoming election and interest rate changes. The episode also covers the role of AI in enhancing personalization experiences, challenges faced by dollar stores, and supply chain issues. We conclude with insights into Amazon's recent earnings and their strategies to engage younger consumers through TikTok Shops. Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Download the complete 54 page deck of all my insights from the US Dept of Commerce Retail Data for the first half of 2024 here https://rgeek.co/retail2024 Transcript [0:23] Welcome Back After Hiatus Jason   [0:23]Welcome to the Json and Scott show this is episode 320 being recorded on Monday september 16th 2024 I'm your host Jason retail gee Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot   [0:38]Hey Jason and welcome back after a very long time, Jason and Scott show listeners Jason our last show was an early May so it's been about a little over a 4-month hiatus and when people ask me I always blame you do you blame me. Jason   [0:57]I do blame you and I'm bitter because in my mind. Nobody's really complaining to you but like I I've gone called out on stage by like I've I've been heckled by people that are like what are you going to do a new show. Scot   [1:15]It's part of our it's it's a Nintendo like strategy where you you dribble you know if you could really constrain Supply scarcity that drives demand so yeah. Jason   [1:25]Yeah it it we are we are playing 3 dimensional chess in a world of checkered players. Scot   [1:31]Exactly the the real reason is as Chief digital Innovation retail and payments and grocery officer your title's gotten bigger and your your more famous your allies on a plane I can never record because I'm like how about now he's like Paris how about now Australia how about now India so you've been flying all over the world. Jason   [1:52]I sadly I have been it does feel like travel is back there there have been more International trips this year than any year before coid so I I can I can only partially deny that accusation. Scot   [2:08]Cool well we're glad that we have you here for for an hour give us an update what are you any uh show you know what's going on out in the world of retail as you've been expanding the globe for the Json and Scott show. Jason   [2:20]Yeah it's been another Super interesting year for retail we'll we'll certainly get into some of what we think are the key topics that have been planned out this year but I have attended a bunch of events I I can't even remember which ones where since this this last show visited a bunch of customers out in the field which is always great learning new things from them [2:51] Upcoming Events in Retail Jason   [2:40]but the upcoming show is in early October is grocery shopping in Las Vegas so I'll be moderating a panel on. AI enabling Next Generation personalization, at at that show which I always look forward to to grocery shop and then a week later they're they're shop talk is moving their show their other stuff to Chicago so they're going to have their first, fall shop talk that will be in my backyard in Chicago so I'll be curious to see how if the world wants another another iteration of shop talk every year. Scot   [3:18]Yeah give us the behind-the-scenes did you like throw down the gauntlet and said shop talk must move to Chicago or I'm not going to attend or and run all the speaking stuff. Jason   [3:28]I basically did that with everything I told every client that they had come to Chicago I told shop talk and I told you you had to come here to record the podcast and yeah you'll note we haven't had a lot of podcasts and you know I still have the same 3 customers here I've always had. Scot   [3:44]But you got to show them to me for at least that's a 1 w. Jason   [3:46]I did but they really just added a show they're just looking for more Revenue so like it seems like it's probably not. Not just me but I feel like your LinkedIn feed has been more active than me and mostly with accolades for for the the fund that you helped kick off. Scot   [4:05]Yeah yeah so the just to update everybody I'm in a post spiffy world so started spiffy in 2014 and then, you know decided to to we got to kind of north of a 60-ish million run rate which is plenty big lots of employees lots of things going on and I had started this little side hustle well first of all I started this thing for our little local ecosystem here called the tweener list in 2015 which was just a little passion project and then started a little fund around that called the tweener fund which invests in early stage startups so I've I've really enjoyed that and decided to, move on from spiffy and make this my full-time gig so have been really enjoying doing that and actually have. I'm sure you do this where you have a list of things you're kind of like want to learn about and you can hardly ever get to it and I've been doing a lot of that the last 4 weeks and 1 of the big 1 is AI I've been going really deep on AI and it's been been a lot of fun to play around with all the cool new stuff going on there and I got a couple interesting ideas I'm not going to reveal anything but there's some interesting if you think from a AI native remember how we used to talk about mobile native well now thinking AI native I think there's some interesting things that could happen in the world of e-commerce so I'm going to I may go back to thinking more about e-commerce so we'll see. Jason   [5:23]Come on back though we're we're waiting for you the water is fine man they're they're for your point there's a lot of super interesting stuff the grocery shop will be fun a a show after that that I'm looking forward to is NRF because you know they have this Innovation Pavilion and they've kind of upped the the, rigger around recruiting exhibitors at The Innovation Pavilion this year and I think it's going to it's a big year for Innovation so, probably be a cool time for all of us to meet in the New York in January with global warming it's not even cold anymore. Scot   [5:58]Not been there not too long ago and it's still pretty darn cold for this North Carolina. Jason   [6:04]Oh okay fair enough fair enough I'm just last year was the first time it snowed in like 2 years in New York at at in her uh and then. Scot   [6:10]Okay yeah yeah last time I remember trudging through like 6 inches to get to your hotel which was painfully far away. Jason   [6:17]I mean that's yeah that's been my normal life so it's been weird that you haven't had to take the heavy coat to New York so although I wouldn't recommend that if you go to New York in January I'd bring that vote uh. And, I feel like in addition to everything else I know we're going to jump into the retail but all the Apple software updates dropped today so cool new icons and emojis and and delayed chats so I can have, like Emoji based chats hit Scott Wingo at every hour of the day now it's amazing. Scot   [6:48]Nice I look forward to that at 4:00 a.m. I'll have my do not disturb on to counteract your your attack. Jason   [6:53]Yeah although I may need you talk about new things you want to learn 1 of the things I want to learn is how to make Do Not Disturb work right in the the modern app like the system because I feel like all the focus modes have made it complicated. Scot   [7:05]Yeah I have to have you know that that kind of funny YouTube where the dad puts on 6 seat belts that's me putting on do not disturb I have to do the physical thing check the moon do my watch hit D and D in a profile and then that's that that combination of things I don't know which of them does it but that seems to stop everything. [7:28] AI in Grocery Shopping Jason   [7:23]Yes I feel like I'm in a similar boat but it would be interesting to figure out how to do it for as intended. Scot   [7:29]Yeah or just we know it works so just keep doing it do so just give us a preview of grocery shop can AI do better recommendations than kind of the old school way we used to do it. Jason   [7:42]So 1 would hope certainly it can do it at greater scale than we used to do it there's some anecdotal evidence that it's. Better it you know part of it I'm I'm curious to talk to some of these folks So So Meta will be on my panel. They they have a strong POV you know what's going on in the digital ad space right now is all the the ad platforms are trying to talk you into going hands off the wheel and turning over. The bidding to their AI engines and I would say at the moment it's an uneven playing field there like if I if I talk to my. Performance media folks they'll tell you that the the AI robots from some of the platforms are very effective and tend to outperform a manual bidding and on other platforms that they they wildly do not so. Jason   [8:33]That it'll be interesting to kind of hear their perspective 1 of the panelists is hungryroot, which to me is a super interesting example they they're truly doing AI based recommendation so they're essentially they're a ger. That is mainly filling out your whole cart for you proactively with AI based. Recommendations so you manicure a Char a cart that they recommend to you versus you hunting and pecking for each individual item and putting it in your cart and they they have some pretty interesting sales metrics using that methodology so they're all in, there you might almost think of them as like the Stitch fix of food and so they'll they'll be interesting to hear, and then my friend Ben from Endeavor and Endeavor may be familiar to some listeners not to others they're the largest adult beverage and hospitality company in Australia. And so they they have a nationwide chain of beer and wine stores that are doing some really interesting personalization hubs and kind of Shifting all of their customer touch points to to 1 to 1 so. I'll be curious to hear how effective they all claim to be. Scot   [9:47]How do these it seems like you're going to need some training data like how do they Kickstart that do they look at like your email or credit card data to kind of get an idea for what you like or they just kind of start you at a demographic Baseline and build from there or do you know. Jason   [10:01]Yeah well so in many cases you've been a customer of theirs for a long time right so they have you you have a significant amount of personal data I mean Walmart launched a predictive cart feature, in January that's in beta so I think it's only available to a select group of. Of Walmart Plus members but yeah it you it's trained on all of th those members pass purchases leading up to the launch of that product. Um so I yeah good question what signals do they use for a net new customer but I think the first crop where customers where they they already had a significant history. Scot   [10:40]Got it cool well that's gonna be a good panel riveting it's also pretty wild they have them so close together now that's like 10 days you're gonna have to kind of like Zip back home rest for a couple days and jump in. Jason   [10:50]I I do I was going to zip back home anyway so it's not an inconvenience for me but I my heart does go out to all the the shop talk folks that that have responsibilities of both shows because that I'm certain is not fun for them. Scot   [11:02]Cool which of the shop talks is bigger now the. Jason   [11:09]Shop talk is still the biggest show that's their March show um and it's it's north of 10,000 people so it might have been like 11,000 this year I'm not sure they, release an official number so hopefully I'm not disclosing something proprietary and grocery shop is only about half that size. So think closer to 5 500 attendees and then this fall shop talk this will be the first time so so. All all bets are off I I certainly wish them no ill will but part of me thinks it's a it's a big lift to get people. To add yet another event to their schedules. Scot   [11:48]Yeah maybe the Fallen will be more Regional like you know folks in the midwest or east. Jason   [11:53]Yeah I mean that that would be my initial assumption but you know they've they've been able to build up some really good shows in the past so so you know we'll see how they do with this 1 I certainly, would like to see a good show in Chicago they're in as you would remember in the old days you know there was like internet retailer here which still exists but I would argue it's it's probably well past its prime. Problem is when you did the orientation and used to teach everyone how to do e-commerce on the first day. Scot   [12:20]Amazon yeah that was fun that was they were like well you do this and I was like well how many people come and they're like I usually 100 and I did it and there's like 700 people say dude you vastly underestimated your crowd size at this thing the um. Jason   [12:32]I know I know you're a big draw. Scot   [12:34]Yeah well of course the uh and what was always funny is people would want to meet I forget what hotel it was either Hyatt, or a Hilton and there was 4 of them around that convention center and like No 1 could ever find each other at that that Hotel chain because they know 1 realized they all had the same name I'm sure that's still a problem. Was always funny to watch the chaos ensue. Jason   [12:54]Yeah. Scot   [12:55]The only thing works is in Las Vegas when you're at the Mandalay Bay when the hotel is called the hotel and the bars called the bar it's like a whose first kind of scenario trying to get. Jason   [13:04]Yeah I'm sure they thought that was really clever when they. Scot   [13:07]Yeah that was the worst worst naming. Jason   [13:08]When they first named it yeah. Scot   [13:11]Cool well you guys have been waiting for it and we are recording this mid-september all of our friends and Retail and e-commerce are making their final changes to their sites they're implementing their new features they're putting new vendors in place and going through the final QA test, before the big October code freeze so. This is when the Pod turns to really thinking about a holiday of 24 it's a fun to believe that we're already here this fast and Jason to tee that up let's set the table a little bit you put out a really interesting kind of adjacent Mega deck on LinkedIn that was really good and I thought maybe we could go through a couple slides of that and kind of tee up, you know how the year has gone so far and then that'll take us into kind of a little bit of a prediction of how holiday 24 is going to shape up. Jason   [13:58]Yeah yeah yeah happy to do it thanks man so maybe setting the table. I don't want to go back and get too deep we'll put a link to the deck so anyone that wants it's like 54 pages of data visualizations about about the Commerce industry so anyone's welcome to download it and check for themselves but the the highest level metric that I like to think about is this thing that NRF calls core retail so that's, all of retail sales from the US Department of Commerce US Census Data uh except restaurants Gas and Automobiles and. Jason   [14:33]If you go back in time and you say how how much does core retail grow year-over-year for the last 20 years core retail grew about 3.9% a year. And then of course we had this this huge anomaly more recently which was Co. And you know I like to joke that like well you know some people feel like oh man those were really hard years for retail what they forget is we mailed 5 trillion dollars in extra cash to everyone and didn't let them spend any of that on flights or Taylor Swift tickets. And so those were actually the greatest growth years in the history of retail like we like the the peak year was like 14% growth for core retail. So we had that this like Giant mountain of unusual growth 3 years that were twice as big as the normal 3.9% growth, and then 2023 happened and 2023 was right back to the average 3.9% again, and so now we're halfway through 2024 and we're actually below that average a little bit so we're at 3.4% growth year to date. Which is you know meaningfully off from 3.9% like that you know these are these are big numbers so that's 2.9 trillion dollars worth of sales year to date. Jason   [15:50]And the you know. [16:02] Retail Growth Trends Jason   [15:53]When we look at holiday I I mean we'll we'll talk about it in a minute but you know that's kind of setting the the table for retail for holiday but of course. People on this podcast are probably particularly interested in e-commerce and will know that historically at least in the modern era e-commerce has grown much faster. So the problem with talking about the average growth rate of e-commerce is of course it only started about 24 years ago and so it's. You know the the rate of growth has has decreased over time if you look at the last 24 years e-commerce is growing 17% a year versus that 3.9% for retail. Over the last 10 years right before coid e-commerce was growing at 12.4% a year. Jason   [16:37]So I kind of tell people think about you know e-commerce typically growing at 12% a year retail typically growing at 4% a year is kind of the. The the basic ratios so 4 times faster but this year 2024, retail is only growing at 3.4% and e-commerce is only growing at 7.5% so still twice as fast growth but a meaningful slowdown from the, historic average and you know at the risk of of giving away a spoiler. I I don't think that's like some bounce because of a spike during Co I actually think it's just an indication of the maturing of. Of e-commerce and e-commerce is a you know increasingly big chunk of of the whole retail pie it's. E-commerce is 21.8% of core retail so almost 22% so you know we'll spend over 7 trillion dollars this year and you know well over a trillion of it will be e-commerce. Scot   [17:38]Interesting cool so that's the full year. Jason   [17:41]Yeah well. Scot   [17:43]Basically kind of an average year. Jason   [17:45]So so last, yeah so so well so last year e-commerce had already started slow down it it grew again the average was about 12% it grew 10% last year and we're only growing 7.5% year to date this year. Scot   [17:59]Okay got it okay. Jason   [18:01]But. As I keep pointing out to people the story depending on who you are the story is either vastly better or worse than that those industry averages I just shared because the real story of of retail in 2024 is. This this concept of bifurcation right that there are 5 retailers that are vastly outperforming those industry averages. And they are eating up all of the growth in the industry so these 5 retailers represent 51% of all that growth so if you're 1 of those 5 retailers, you're having a great year if you are not 1 of those 5 retailers you're having a way worse than average year in in most cases so that's, Amazon which alone represents 16% of all retail growth it's Walmart which represents 15% of all retail growth, and it's it's Tik Tok which, you know was well under a billion dollars in sales last year and is trending towards twenty billion dollars in sales this year so they're the fastest growing retail, in the history of mankind and then rounding out these top 5 Growers are the the fastest growing return history of mankind from the last 2 years T-Mobile and shien so, it's kind of T-Mobile Sheen Tik Tok Walmart and Amazon's world and the rest of us are just living in it which is you know somewhat alarming for the rest of retail. Scot   [19:26]Yeah yeah definitely is it seems like those the chinese-based guys seems like they're taking share from somebody but it's not Amazon is it dollar stores because it's kind of like this convenience-oriented lower price kind of stuff right. Jason   [19:42]Yeah so it it it it's it's inexpensive variety Goods the, it it very likely is taking share from from the the dollar stores the dollar stores have not fared well which historically, you know there's there's some economic headwinds there's a thing going on in the United States that I I like to call A vibe session which means, some of the the economic fundamentals are actually pretty decent but people are really, consumer sentiment is down and people are really cutting back on their spending there's a lot of evidence that people are trading down and and trying to be more frugal, and that kind of climate normally has favored the dollar stores and yet you know they're they're definitely performing below these, these industry averages so certainly a chunk of of the Tik Tok team mushy and growth um is coming at their expense. Some of the sheen growth is coming at the expense of luxury which you know historically luxury has been been insulated from downturns in the market but you know we're starting to see. Some softness in their earnings and for sure softness in their guidance. So you know the you know people that would have bought more designer stuff maybe they're still buying some designer things but they're mixing it in with really affordable fashion from. From shien like I I am sure Amazon is losing some sales to Tik Tok shops that they would like to have but for your point. Jason   [21:08]Amazon still you know growing much faster than the rest of the market and so yeah it's not it's not eroding Amazon's any share it's just eroding their Tam. [21:28] Concerns for Holiday 2024 Scot   [21:19]Got it okay so that's the setup so e-commerce has slowed down a bit retails kind of doing its thing what what does that mean for holiday. Jason   [21:29]Yeah so I I have become Debbie Downer I am concerned about holiday this year, so if we just kind of extrapolate out these Trends again 3.4% growth is below our historic average so if something dramatically didn't turn around if consumer sentiment didn't get a lot better. For this holiday you would expect this to be a slightly soft. Holiday and I I really think this trend of winners and losers is likely to continue through holidays so I think you're going to see a handful of retailers perform really well holiday at the expense of everyone else and I. I I think on average that's going to mean that revenue is kind of similar to traditional holiday growth. But I I suspect that that's that margins, will be even further eroded than usual so so usually for Holiday retail grows about 4.3% e-commerce grows at 12.9% I don't think we'll see either of those numbers for holiday this year and I think. Jason   [22:34]You know if if retail grows at 3.7% and Ecom grows at 8% you know I still think you're going to see Amazon Walmart and Tik Tok grab, disproportionate share of that holiday spend which is going to be bad news, for a lot of other folks and those are just kind of the macro Trends you have to layer in that that there's a couple of reasons to to be worried about this holiday regardless of the trends going into this holiday so. We have a different calendar a number of days in the holiday season every year, and this is our worst year this is the year when we have the fewest days and holiday which actually you know historically does depress sales if there's fewer days to shop then then we sell less stuff and so this is the shortest holiday season that we ever get, and historically an election year is not favorable to Holiday spend right so traditionally there's some some anxiety and you know. Competition for attention, that plays into these November elections that impacts holiday and I I think you know this will be the most polarized election ever and so I think it's you know no matter what the outcome is half the country is going to be pretty depressed and that that likely you know translates into not an awesome holiday so so we got some things working against us. Scot   [23:53]Yeah so if that's the headwinds I'll throw in a Tailwind so as a our celebrated CNBC junkie the all they talk about is the Fed meeting tomorrow where you know it's pretty clear the fed's going to lower interest rates and the big question is is it going to be a quarter point or half a point I think I I I'm not a prognost prognosticator on that I think whatever they do it's going to be wildly popular and relief a lot of this kind of interest rate pressure we've everything's been on so even if it's only a quarter point I think it'll be somewhat euphoric for the market and for for hopefully for consumers to feel like interest rates are coming down a little bit so maybe that'll like bump start some house buying and selling and they'll be a little bit more liquidity in the market so so I'm going to think of that as more of a Tailwind so there's some positivity going on there do you worry about the election because I think it's just going to take forever to figure out who won and, everyone's going to contest it and it's gonna be like this unknown thing for a very long time so we'll see how that goes. Jason   [24:55]Yeah and you live in a swing state so I can only imagine what's happening to your media. Scot   [24:59]Yeah we just kind of we can't even like the male is an inch thick full of like Gunk and you kind of have to sort through all the stupidity I'm not a political person to get to like you know the bill and make sure you pay it and that kind of stuff and then the you know, at the TV is just crazy but thank goodness I'm not in Pennsylvania I think they're getting just totally hammered right now. Jason   [25:18]Yeah probably so and In fairness while we're covering Tailwind like this could be a headwind or a Tailwind but like I will say in general the macros are getting a little better right so inflation has been steadily coming down the 1 the most stubborn version of inflation had been. In in this core retail category is is food and even food you know they're all down below 3% which like pre-pandemic they were kind of in that, 2.1 2.3% and the FEDS sort of stated goal was to keep inflation between 2 and 3% so, you know we still had all the pain of the high prices over the last couple of years but like. Prices really have started to come down so on the 1 hand that helps consumer sentiment you know just like in announcement from the FED would and so that that's favorable you know most of the jobs reports have been you know pretty good there's there there's some decent news that in theory should make people feel better, the flip side is inflation going down actually hurts retail sales because the stuff they sell is cheaper and so when, comping with low inflation against a previous year of higher inflation it actually can make your comps more challenging. So yeah it's a a complicated mix of stuff going on. Scot   [26:35]Yeah does that if you boil all that down do you end up with a like a semi prediction like if your clients were to say to you give me a number what what do you spit out. Jason   [26:45]Yeah I I'm saying buckle up I normal retail holiday growth is 4.3% and I think we're retail growth is going to be below 4 this year. Margins vary wildly depending on the category but I think average margins are going to be down across the board like there there are going to be some some outliers like the the interest rates have really been brutal on the Home Improvement guys right like if you know people can't get loans they're trapped in their house uh they don't buy new houses they spend a lot less in Home Depot and Lowe's and I think it's pretty likely Buy holiday that there's some, some movement in the in the interest rates which like at the at the very least is going to Goose. That housing market which is going to have a trickle on effect to the the Home Improvement guys so I I suspect they'll have. Better holiday than they have the last last couple of years but overall I I'm not optimistic, you know with the caveat that some some really good operators or some people with a really clever model like the Amazon Walmart Tik toks are are likely gonna you know have a really good run this holiday. Scot   [27:51]Okay cool I will I do not have a prediction so I'll stick with yours. Jason   [27:58]Usually that doesn't work out well for you but thanks. Scot   [28:01]I have to go review our it's been so long I have to go look at our New Year's predictions because there's always start to be coming to fruition here soon. Jason   [28:09]Yeah yeah yeah I've kept half an eye on some of them and there's there's going to be some some are going to come down to the wire some I I would have thought were safer but like you know surprisingly Amazon's pretty slow getting their their AI stuff out the door so we'll see. Scot   [28:23]Yeah yeah there's the so this is a sidebar that we didn't really prepare for but did you see they tried to build their own and they kind of couldn't and they had to punt and they're using and. Not anthropology the 1 that starts know they're using anthropic. Jason   [28:41]Anthropic that's right yes I did see that um. Scot   [28:44]Yeah so that's got to be embarrassing I mean they invested like some bazillions of dollars. Jason   [28:47]To I mean Amazon is kind of a not invented here company so like when they have to give up on the internal initiative and and rent someone else's Tech that that probably doesn't feel very good. Scot   [28:59]Yeah I made the mistake of changing my action button on my phone to the chat GPT voice and then I've been I switched from Google in my search to perplexity so I've gotten used to asking these pretty complex questions and then I chat with Alexa and I feel like I'm talking to a kindergarten I'm like I'll even like ask it something you know play this song from this album by that artist and it loses itself halfway through half the time I feel like it's brain is melting and it's just like getting Dumber even though I know it's at a Baseline. Jason   [29:29]Yeah no absolutely and and I would say it's even more acute in my household because I live with a 9-year-old um and and his default is that, it should know all of this stuff right and it asks he asks these really complicated questions and I like can't tell you how many times a day I have to say to my son she's not going to know that. Scot   [29:50]Why dad why. Jason   [29:54]But but for your point hand him like, you know he basically lives to play Roblox and watch you to Awful YouTube videos um and I can hand him chat gbt 40 and like it's about as entertaining as Roblox to him which is amazing. [30:27] The De Minimis Provision Scot   [30:13]Gotcha does uh so you mentioned Teemu and all that jazz you have been tracking this rule that allows China to use our postal system to send stuff free what's going on with that puppy. Jason   [30:27]Yeah so that is famously called the Dominus provision and it's this rule that got. Put into the US Customs Enforcement in like 1938 and the idea was hey if people are going to ship stuff in the United States like we want to charge tax on it we want to charge duties and we want to have rules about what kinds of things from a safety standpoint and from a a human interest standpoint can be imported into our country right and so so normally you ship something from another country it has to go through inspections it has to go through duties but gosh there's this new kind of peer-to-peer marketplaces and there's eBay sellers selling stuff in London to people in the US and we don't have enough Customs agents to inspect all these little, packages that Scott Wingo is helping people sell on the internet right so we're going to pass a rule called the Dominus provision which is if you ship something that has less than 5 dollars of value, you don't have to declare it you don't have to pay taxes on it it's not getting inspected by anyone and it was really just a labor savings for for the the Customs agents in like you know originally in 1939 when like it was it was an e-commerce it was mail order back then. Jason   [31:44]But in like 1996 that that. 5 Dollar limit got bumped to Dollars and then in 2016 the hundred dollars got bumped to $800 and that really opened the floodgates that's when companies like shien and tiemoue figured out that hey instead of filling up a container of stuff, and shipping that container to the US and having to pay C duties on that container and having that container come over in a boat and take a long time to get here I can put each. Sale in an individual envelope, and Air Freight it to the US and it'll be under the 800 hour minimum so I won't have to pay duties on it I won't have to get it inspected. And you know these these factories in China, and these these marketplaces of these factories in China you know quickly built a huge business shipping individual packages to Americans right and so that's. Jason   [32:48]You know today they they quote unquote exploit what we call the Dominus provision. To to ship all those packages right and so there's been a lot of complaints by people that have to compete with the, the those those you know cheap Imports and there's been a lot of saber rattling in Congress about how you know this is exploitation and all these things, and so last week Biden proposed, that he was going to issue an executive order that goods from China no longer qualify for the de minimis exception and so what that would mean is regardless of the value. Every single package that comes from China would have to go through customs would have to be inspected would have to meet all of our import requirements and so, you know some people are looking at that and saying oh man that's going to put a huge dent that's going to make shien goods and Tik Tok goods and tiemoue goods more expensive. And that might rebalance you know all of these trends that that you and I have just been been talking about. I regrettably am a little more skeptical that it's going to have a huge impact. Jason   [33:58]Couple of other sort of interesting facts to know about this Dominus thing so first of all. Not going to shock anyone there's a lot of american-based companies that are now taking full advantage of this de minimis Clause right so. Jason   [34:12]Not going to name names on the podcast but there's a lot of big sellers that are us-based that import containers of goods to Mexico and then put those, unpack those containers in Mexico and ship, the goods in individual packages from Mexico to the US so they get relatively fast delivery and they get to bypass all the duties and tariffs and you know that's that that's being done by by a number of like big famous, uh retailers and brands in the US so this kind of Dominus rule if it if it affects goods from China. I guess the first thing I would expect to see is Tik Tok and team who are going to start shipping containers to Mexico and importing them from another country right and so we're going to get kind of a a wacko, situation and if you if you Google section 321 which is the the. Part of the the Customs law that that that amendments provision is in section 321 shipping you're going to find that there's dozens of 3pls that specialize in in doing this for you so. I think it's going to be harder to knock down than 1 executive order but the bigger problem is. Tik Tok to and shien together are by some estimates sending about 900,000 packages a day. Jason   [35:33]2 of the United States and so if you could magically wave a wand and say all 900,000 of those packages have to be inspected before they can come in. Think what that would do to the rate of goods flowing into the United States right like all everybody's Imports all the containers would get slowed down because, we have the same number of Customs agents we've always had an executive order can't hire a bunch of new Customs agents that would require new budget from Congress and that seems a lot less likely. So just like the reason the Dominus was there is we didn't have enough people to look at all these packages and that was when they're way less packages than there are now so. If we could somehow like do away with Dominus like would it, reduce the number of shipments probably but it still would be way more shipments it would still overwhelm well customs and would likely suddenly mean all those goods that are I guess holiday Goods for the most part are already on the way are already here but like, it it would probably have a dramatic effect on on q1 availability of goods because it would just gum Up Customs so while I I like the ex the spirit of trying to, update the laws to have a More Level Playing Field I kind of doubt in practice that 1 Executive Order is is going to fix this super complicated problem. Scot   [36:51]Yeah now that we're through earning season did you hear anything else interesting in earnings that we were not able to do an Amazon's earning podcast there wasn't really anything super exciting other than. You know kind of more of the same I think you know the AWS did better than a lot of people thought which was good, and that everyone's really focused on that because of the AI stuff everyone's worried Amazon's going to lose share but they seem to be holding their own and then e-commerce and, the retails were were kind of in line so they didn't really slow or speed up, if you have any there was a little color around Prime day but nothing Earth shattering any other interesting things from earnings Seasons you saw. Jason   [37:31]Yeah so so again like what you've you've kind of had 3 kinds of retailers right you had those 5 retailers that I mentioned only only 2 of them have like earnings calls in the US which is, Amazon and Walmart. Tik Tok is owned by bike dance which has has earnings calls in China and team was owned by poor which has earnings calls in China she and is trying to go public they're trying to list in in London so we haven't really seen any, any earnings calls from them so they they've had interesting things you've actually had T-Mobile stock took a pretty big hit after their earnings because they, reported great sales but by dance like lowered his guidance and part of it is I believe. In in response to how much share Tik Tok shops has captured so this is 1 of I think 1 of the most interesting stories of the year is. Jason   [38:23]For probably as long as I've known you Scott like we've always talked about social commerce and people are always talking about like. Hey there's all this attention on Facebook are people going to be able to sell Goods on Facebook and just not even need e-commerce sites anymore and the narrative we've always had is man it's been tried dozens and dozens of times and it so far hasn't worked it seems like. Us consumers don't want to shop on their social platforms they want to interact with their friends on their social platforms and they want to shop on their shop platforms, but the 1 place in the world where this does seem to be working is China where, pendo Duo on Alibaba had been you know pretty successful 10-cent had been pretty successful with with social commerce and, that narrative is kind of over right now because Tik Tok shops is selling twenty billion dollars worth of stuff direct to Consumer and Tik Tok is. Really winning with consumers attention and especially with younger consumer consumers attention so you know. Jason   [39:21]Gen Z Shoppers are are gen Z consumers are spending like an hour a day, on Tik Tok like the Olympics didn't do very well because nobody watches long form video on television anymore like they're all watching all this this short form content on Tik Tok and Tik Tok has been able to turn that attention, into sales so much so that you know the most successful e-commerce site on the planet while Amazon has has kind of said like hey we can't beat him so we're joining him right so Amazon announced, a deal with Tik Tok where you can run an ad on Tik Tok have direct Commerce in that ad and check out with your Amazon credentials and have your order fulfilled by Amazon Prime, in an ad on the Tik Tok platform so that is super interesting and Amazon has said and we're going to start shipping Goods direct from China just like Tik Tok and T-Mobile and shien so they've announced that they're going to, [40:27] TikTok's Impact on E-commerce Jason   [40:19]direct to Consumer from factory model you know presumably to take advantage of some of this these same de de minimis. Jason   [40:27]Provisions that we we talked about earlier so it's kind of interesting to see Amazon have to kind of match some of the, the offerings and play with some of these Frenemies you know historically you know that's that's gone the other way right like it was it was the old Legacy retards that were having to begrudgingly or brands that had to begrudgingly, moved to Amazon so interesting to see Amazon moving to Tik Tok so that was a super interesting. Jason   [40:56]Sort of evolution this year I'm going to be really interested to see whether the, the Tik Tok thing you know it's mostly inexpensive impulse Goods at the moment and, you know can that get traction with staples will people buy more premium Goods we're starting to see more and more Brands I just spent some time with, Keurig which owns you know a bunch of the coffee brands and they're now doing direct Commerce on Tik Tok shops so it kind of went from all unbranded stuff on Chinese factories to, you know we're starting to see branded merchandise in the Tik Tok shop so, that super fascinating and then on a much more scale 1 other thing that really jumped out of me in the investor call after the Amazon earnings is the Amazon CFO talked about. Jason   [41:43]The softness that people have seen in the drug channel right and so Walgreens write a CVS haven't been having a very good run lately and and he called out that like Amazon probably got a boost in sales because the the Walgreens so helpfully locked all the products behind cages and that like uh. You know was an impediment to sales at Walgreens and caused a lot of those sales to happen on Amazon instead and so you know if you remember last year a lot of retailers were claimed you know crying about shrinking complaining a lot about shoplifting you're not hearing a lot of conversation and earnings calls about shrink this year. And now you know Amazon saying like man we're we're a beneficiary of all the the eroded customer experiences, that that have resulted from an overreaction to shrink. Scot   [42:34]Hu yeah I saw there's a CVS has a thing where you can actually tap with your phone I guess it has an NFC chip in it and so I imagine you have to have the CVS app and be logged in and then you can tap to get into that cage so at least you don't have to wait an hour for someone to wander by and and get you your your pack of gum. Jason   [42:55]Yeah which I have mixed feelings about on the 1 hand I really admire The Innovation and that's a clever way to reduce the friction if you are going to put all these products and product jail which is what I call those those cases the, the pro you know the the argument would be, in CVS's case you have to be a member of their Affinity program and have their app on your phone in order to unlock the cases and so like in practice essentially what that means is you know all of America used to be able to shop at CVS now it's a members-only store right like now it's it's it's essentially Costco like you you have to be a member and give them all your data or you're going to have really inconvenient access to the razor blades and so you know, I could see that going either way like if if you compare it to Walgreens or Raid where you don't get that option like it might be looked at favorably but if you kind of look at it in big picture and say wait a minute you're going to lock up all this stuff and then you're going to make me be a member of your Affinity program in order to, to just be able to do what I've always done or at least since the 1920s when Piggly Wiggly opened up all this stuff. Jason   [44:01]I you know I could imagine consumers not not reacting super well to that, I don't actually know if the CVS is is like Bluetooth or NFC but you did bring up another point. IOS 18 launch today and 1 of the cool features in iOS 18 is they have apple is for the first time opened up the NFC chip to third-party apps so. Under iOS 18 it would be possible for CVS to use that NFC chip to unlock the, the uh their their smart locks that would not have been possible in the previous operating system so that's a fun Commerce innovation, that came to uh Apple today, and I haven't seen any announcements yet but I'll I'll be surprised if we don't see some some cool evolution of some of the digital wallets to take advantage of that new feature as well. Scot   [44:50]Pretty cool yeah so anything else before we wrap up that that you want to prep listeners for as we go into holiday. Jason   [44:58]No no I feel like we covered a lot of ground again I'm I'm super sorry on my behalf and and Scott's behalf that we've been a little sporadic with the shows we really appreciate all the kind words people have, been sending our way and for sure I take it as a compliment that people are mad at me that we haven't been putting out shows so hopefully we'll we'll be able to find some good Windows throughout the rest of the year to get some, some shows out there I you know certainly want to do a recap after grocery shop coming up and we'll certainly want to cover holiday and maybe we can do some. Go old school and do some live shows from interrupt this year if we can get you to come to to New York Scott. Scot   [45:35]Yeah yeah the we'll look at the weather and see how it goes. Jason   [45:39]Yeah yeah yeah if if you're an investor in his fund use use that leverage to pressure him to do it. Scot   [45:45]Hey that hurts. Jason   [45:46]And if you're not an investor nurse fund why the heck not. Scot   [45:49]Heck yeah between your fund.com come on aboard. Jason   [45:52]Exactly well Scott that's probably going to be a great place to leave it if you're super ecstatic that we are back on the air feel free to jump on iTunes and give us that 5-star review we want to refreshen those up and. Until next time happy commercing.  

Ready to excel in retail with Amazon, Walmart, and TikTok Shop?

В этом выпуске у меня в гостях Мария Голубеве, директор по цифровой стратегии в медиа-агентстве Zenith. Обсуждаем, что такое розничные медиасети, как работает реклама на платформах вроде Amazon и Walmart, и почему это перспективное направление для карьеры. Мария делится информацией о необходимых навыках, обучении, карьерном росте и зарплатах в этой области. Они также затрагивают темы поиска работы в США, альтернативные направления в digital-маркетинге и дают советы тем, кто ищет работу.Мария Голубева (Maria Golubeva), директор по цифровой стратегии в медиа-агентстве Zenith Media, Нью Йорк.Telegram: https://t.me/digital_and_beyond/232Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masha.golubLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariia-golubeva/Ссылки, упомянутые в видео:Всего $35,000! Виза таланта O1, гринкарта EB1 и оффер в Samsung. Интервью с Ольгой Егоровой - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3YD0FoZAGIРабота в геймдеве: как стать разработчиком игр в 2024 году? Интервью с Сашей Николаевым, Wargaming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=908KCsJZaOY https://skai.io/training-and-certification/ https://www.profitero.com/shelf-intelligent-media*** Записывайтесь на карьерную консультацию (резюме, LinkedIn, карьерная стратегия, поиск работы в США): https://annanaumova.com Онлайн курс "Идеальное резюме и поиск работы в США": https://go.mbastrategy.com/resumecoursemain Гайд "Идеальное американское резюме": https://go.mbastrategy.com/usresume Гайд "Как оформить профиль в LinkedIn, чтобы рекрутеры не смогли пройти мимо" (предзаказ): https://link.coursecreator360.com/widget/form/ObfVCQ2clIWTdNcQBAkf Мой Telegram-канал: https://t.me/prodcastUSA Мой Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prodcast.us/

From eBay to the e-commerce big leagues, Jason McLellan of VitaCup joins me to unpack the strategy behind his success in Walmart's evolving online marketplace. We kick off with an exploration of Walmart's responsive improvements to seller feedback and their platform, which has leveled up from just another retail site to a critical component in the omnichannel market. Jason's transition from an individual seller to a mover and shaker with VitaCup showcases the agility needed to thrive in today's digital retail space, and he doesn't hold back on sharing the victories and challenges of managing inventory and leveraging Walmart's coupons and subscription beta programs to forge lasting customer relationships. Then, we wade into the realm of subscriptions and coupons, tools that have become indispensable in the arsenal of online marketplaces. We dissect how VitaCup uses initial discounts to reel in customers and the art of maintaining them through smart cohort analysis. It's all about the numbers as we dive deep into data-driven decision-making, assessing how to track subscriber trends and harness coupons to boost conversions and brand credibility. And for those looking to sharpen their product listings, we provide a masterclass on balancing keyword richness with Walmart's preference for conciseness, ensuring your products shine brightly amidst the digital shelves.   To wrap up, we tackle the nitty-gritty of optimizing product listings for peak sales performance on Walmart, balancing the act of keyword incorporation without tipping into overstuffing. We peer into the crystal ball of Walmart's future advertising enhancements like negative targeting and muse over the challenges of price parity and infringement headaches. If you're navigating the Walmart maze, the Helium 10 Winning with Walmart Facebook group is your compass – a community where sellers come together to trade secrets and solutions. So, stay tuned for the next round of insider tips next month on Walmart Wednesday, where we'll continue to chart the course toward success in the Walmart marketplace. In episode 561 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Jason discuss: 00:00 - Strategies for Success on Walmart.com 05:57 - Optimizing Listing Quality for Success 10:43 - Difference Between Amazon and Walmart 13:57 - Optimizing Subscription and Coupon Strategies 0:19:32 - Optimizing Walmart Product Listings for Sales 0:29:44 - Helping Sellers Navigate Walmart Issues

Listen in as Grace Kopplin, a seasoned e-commerce expert with a marketing background and former Helium 10 blog writer, shares her journey from a Midwest upbringing to managing an Amazon team for a nine-figure e-commerce business. Grace's initial forays into retail buying and planning led to her pivotal shift to the e-commerce arena. As she recounts her experience honing analytical skills as a business analyst, we get an inside look at the strategies driving profitability and sales growth on the ever-evolving Amazon platform. During our conversation, we tackled the significant changes that Amazon sellers are facing, especially with the latest coupon and sales strategies in Q1 2024. Grace reveals how the new minimum discount requirements for coupons have transformed selling approaches, impacting product badging and organic ranking. We also talk about the intricacies of Amazon PPC advertising, including the exciting new video campaign options and store spotlight formats. Additionally, Grace provides insight into how resellers can navigate sponsored brand ads amidst fierce buy box competition and the potential for platforms like TikTok Shop to skyrocket brand awareness. To wrap up this episode, Grace and Bradley explore the implementation of AI in Amazon-selling strategies, noting the platform's dominance and the emerging significance of marketplaces like TikTok. We delve into how new Amazon data points and tools, like the Product Opportunity Explorer and Helium 10's Cerebro, are essential for content strategy and maintaining a competitive edge. Plus, don't miss our discussion on the unique challenges of managing large assortments in categories like apparel, footwear, and jewelry. Whether you're a seasoned seller or new to the e-commerce game, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and expert insights you won't want to miss. In episode 560 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Grace discuss: 00:00 - E-Commerce Strategies for Serious Sellers 01:21 - Grace's Backstory 06:11 - Managing Brand Registry and Fees Strategy 13:24 - Amazon Advertising and Selling Strategies 14:45 - New Amazon PPC Strategies and Challenges 20:02 - Amazon Launch Strategy Evolution 23:01 - Amazon Strategy and AI Implementation 25:12 - Leveraging Amazon Data for Strategic Advantage 32:22 - PowerPlay Hockey Jerseys and Conferences ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we've got a seller who used to write blogs for Helium 10 but now works at a company that's a nine-figure seller online with Amazon, obviously, being their number one moneymaker. But you might be shocked when you find out which marketplaces brings in the second most amount of sales. Find out what that is plus get her Amazon strategies in today's episode. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And just wanted to throw a quick shout out here, we have a new TikTok channel at Helium 10. It's helium10_software. So if you want some unserious strategies you know sometimes we got some serious strategies on there too. Make sure to give us a follow. All right, go. You can even see me singing in Chinese on one of these videos here but go to h10.me/tiktok or just type in Helium 10, one zero underscore software and follow us on TikTok. We're going to have somebody who I don't think I'm not going to ask her to do a TikTok dance for us here. But Grace, first time, I believe first time on the podcast, right, for you. Grace: Yes, yes, first time. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, well, welcome. Like you, actually, you know, we met years ago at different conferences and stuff but also for a while when I was running the content team, you were one of our actually contract workers where you would, you know, write some Amazon related blogs. But it could be that I know some of your backstory, but since I'm like 10-second Tom from 50 First Dates, I just forget everything. So, regardless if I remember or not, let's go into your backstory because nobody else on the show might know who you are. You just told me that you're in Minnesota, but it sounds like you're not from there. Where are you from? Grace: Yes, I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I'm still a Midwest gal, but I made my way to Minneapolis about six years ago now. Bradley Sutton: Well, how can you be a Twins fan? Shouldn't you still be a Brewers fan then? Grace: Fair Weather fan, I suppose. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So Milwaukee, the Frozen Tundra of Milwaukee, and then going into college. Where did you go to college at? Grace: Yes, I went to University of Wisconsin in Madison, so very big party school had a great time. Bradley Sutton: What is the mascot? Why can't it? It's not the Grace: The Badgers. Bradley Sutton: See? I was going to say I knew it started with a B. I was like no Beavers is Oregon State. What B is it the Badgers? Yes, all right. Grace: Bucky Badger. Bradley Sutton: Well, what did you? What did you major in over there? Grace: Yeah, I got my BBA in marketing. I've always been just like super business oriented and I wanted to do something that was pretty broad, so I did what anyone would do and got a degree in business, and I've done a lot of different things since then. Bradley Sutton: Okay, and what like. Well, as soon as you got out of university, you know, got your degree. What was your first gainful employment that you did? Grace: I feel like in business school they always teach you. It's like you can either go into finance and be a consultant or if you want to work in retail and you like business, let's go be a buyer. Those are like the two things they tell you that are options. I was like I need to be a buyer so I started my career in retail in a buying office doing buying and planning. So that gave me a pretty good basis of just how retail works. So I focused a lot on brick and mortar retail, buying products for stores, allocating the inventory and doing the forecasting for that. Bradley Sutton: And what was your first exposure to e-commerce? Grace: Yeah, it was actually my first job out of college. We actually slated all of our ads by writing it down in a journal and submitting it through marketing, and our e-com business was super small back then. It wasn't that long ago but that was my first exposure to e-comm and it was always really interesting to me. And as the retail atmosphere changed in the early 2010s, I knew that's where I wanted to be for longevity, for my career. Bradley Sutton: Now, was it at the same company that you're working at today? Grace: No, I've bounced around a lot and my career has led me in a lot of different ways. Unfortunately, a lot of the large big box retailers I worked for all had their demise for any reason or another. So I kind of bounced around until I found an e-commerce centric company, which is where I'm at right now. Bradley Sutton: What did you start doing at this company and then? What have you been doing over the years and not now? What is your main role? Grace: Yeah, so I started as an e-commerce business analyst, which is pretty much jack of all trades when it comes to anything analytical. So I was kind of the person who would be pulling all of the reporting from Amazon, creating forecasts, pitching to our executive team. This is why we need to buy this inventory for Amazon. This is how it all works. So I was really in the weeds and I feel like that gave me such good experience in what I'm doing now, which is kind of managing the full Amazon team really a strong focus on profitability, but also sales growth, which has been such a hot topic recently. So I've done a lot of different things. Bradley Sutton: Is this like a company that has its own brand and manufacturers own products? Grace: So the company is called Powerplay Retail. We started as a manufacturer's rep group, so working with brands, helping them get into retailers. It was really focused on brick and mortar retailers. Obviously, we have Target and Best Buy here in Minneapolis, so companies like us exist to help brands who don't know how to get into retail do just that. And then we kind of morphed into a distributor, as brands needed help actually shipping into retailers. And then when brands were like, hey, can you help us sell online, we were like yes, 100%. So then that's why our e-commerce arm exists. Grace: So we're a third-party reseller that partners with brands that don't want to bring Amazon in-house. So we buy and sell inventory out of our own large 3P account. We're also an Amazon agency, so I manage brands in their own 3P accounts. So I manage brands in their own 3P accounts. So I kind of do it both ways and it kind of just depends on what brands need. And over the years we've also dabbled in private label. We've created our own products and sold those in our accounts as well. So it's been a really cool experience being able to try it just every different way of selling on Amazon. Bradley Sutton: How many seller accounts do you guys have? Grace: Yeah, right now from an owned perspective we have three or four, but just from our full partnership perspective, I'm probably in maybe 20 different accounts on a daily basis. Bradley Sutton: So how does it work for when you're managing somebody else's stuff, like for brand registry? Like do some of these brands already have their own brand registry and then you somehow just get authorized or are you the one who is actually registering their brand because they never were before? How does that work? Grace: Both. So some companies are more Amazon savvy and right from the beginning and get go they registered with brand registry, which is great, and in that case we just become an authorized reseller and an administrator under their brand registry so we can act on their behalf. And in some cases they don't know, so either I'm kind of coaching them through that setup process or actually registering it on their behalf and managing everything. So it kind of just depends on how hands-on they want to be or how hands-off I want to be. So whatever works best for the brand, always the brand in mind for us. Bradley Sutton: Let's just skip ahead. We're going to talk a lot of strategy, but I think the thing top of mind for so many Amazon sellers and I think you have a unique perspective because you're dealing with so many different accounts I'm assuming you've got customers in many different categories, many different size of products, different, you know, types of products. The fees, you know, there's low inventory fees, that's coming. You know, there's low inventory fees. That's coming, you know, depending on when people are listening to this episode, maybe it's already there. There's the inventory placement fees, so that's been out for a little bit longer. How has this affected the brands that you're working with and what are the different strategies that? Like how you guys have pivoted? Like, are you doing your shipments any different or are you just like taking in the chin and it's costing us 20% more? Like, talk a little bit about some different experiences with different brands. Grace: Yeah. So these fees have been a huge topic of conversation for us in my operations team on how we can best handle these. Obviously they're real and we have to figure out a way to respond to them and maintain profitability above all else. So in terms of the shipment processes, we've been kind of going back and forth between the Amazon optimized shipments and just kind of eating the cost, depending on what our profitability looks like. So when these fees were introduced, our first step was like recreating our Amazon profitability model. I know there's a good Helium 10 one out there. Amazon kind of has its own Revenue Calculator tool. Grace: But what we did internally is create a very, very extensive profit and loss model outlining all of those different new fees and how they could impact us, so estimating at like a per pound dollar amount what this inventory placement fee would be an impact for us by SKU. So we can just first see how much can we afford to spend on advertising now that we have to spend more on logistics and operations costs, because that's kind of our flexible cost. And then, two, how is that going to impact our sales if we're investing less on some of the advertising side of things and then when it comes to the low inventory fee side, I was actually surprised that the fee even rolled out when it did. I know there's some concessions that Amazon is making right now and I think they're going to probably continue to make more concessions as some of the loopholes are found. But the fact that it's getting charged at the parent level is a huge problem, especially for a lot of brand partners that we have in the clothing and apparel and footwear side of things. Bradley Sutton: Wait, hold on, hold on. I've just been so busy with stuff I haven't even been checking that. So at the parent level means like you could have 10 variations and nine of them are cool, but then what? Don't tell me. You're saying that if one of them is low inventory, everything gets charged. Grace: No, it's not one of them, it's the sum of all of the children up to the parent. So no, it's not one of them, it's the sum of all of the children up to the parent. So they take like the average part of the supply chain, like it's not under my control if there's an issue with the supply of the raw materials needed to create my product and I can't ship it into FBA. So we're definitely looking at those, estimating them and seeing how we can respond, and there's definitely been some strongly worded emails to my Amazon Account Manager about just how these are impacting us and how critical it is to our business, as profitability right now is, it's hard for all third party resellers. Bradley Sutton: So your team is not the one controlling the inbound? I mean, obviously you're not controlling the manufacturing. But what about from, like you know, some of these brands have 3PL, are you the one who created the transfer shipments? Grace: Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So how are you doing those differently, if at all? Grace: Yeah. So we have decided because Amazon is encouraging us to send in more units at once to decrease our frequency of shipments into Amazon. So in efforts to maintain a very lean weeks of supply, we've implemented a process to send in weekly replenishment orders based on the last week sales which makes a lot of sense, right. But now as Amazon is encouraging us to send in more and more and charging us more to send in less, we've had to weigh those costs and benefits of sending in shipments weekly. So now, depending on the size of the product, it might even be monthly that we're sending into Amazon, and we've been relying a lot on LTL shipments to save on prices. But now it seems like small parcel might be a little bit more cost effective for us in some cases. So it's definitely changed how we've managed this and I'm really interested to see how these fees potentially change moving into Q4, as we're sending in a ton of inventory into FBA and shipments just become so much more regular. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, okay, interesting. We've got Prime Day coming up in July and what you know. You've got a number of Prime Days under your belt. What are some things that you're planning on doing the same or and or differently as far as what kinds of deals, if any, you're doing, like how you tackle your PPC? Let's just have a quick Grace's Prime Day Playbook 2024. Grace: You know what I was thinking about this today, because Lightning Deals and Prime Exclusive Discounts are due by midnight and with all of these changes, and also I don't know if you've heard about the new return fee assessment happening on June 1st but this, I think, is going to have a huge impact on us and just our profitability and how much we're going to be able to afford on markdowns and promotions. Grace: So my theory, at least for Prime Day this year, is people are going to be a little bit less promotional just because of how hard it's been to be profitable with these new fees. But then again, there are those discount minimums that we need to meet in order to get that prime day badging which means so much to your sales. So for our top moving, best products, I'm still going to be at least 20% off, like I need the badging if I don't get the sales. It doesn't matter if I'm profitable or not, so I'm definitely be. I'm definitely going to be pulling back on some of the costs, like PPC, in order to fund my promotions. So I think, to answer your question succinctly, I will be definitely promoting steeply on my best products, but maybe my middle tier and my lower selling products. I might just keep those at full price because of profitability reasons. Bradley Sutton: Speaking of discounts and things like that. You know another thing that kind of rolled man 2024, when I think about it, the Q1 was just like a doozy for a few things. So the restrictions on, like coupons and discounts and, like you know, the sales history yeah, minimum discounts for coupons. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So like, how has that effect? Like I mean, for me it didn't affect me too much on the coupon side, because I don't always use coupons. But what about you? Were you guys using coupons? And if so, has your strategy had to shift now? Grace: Yeah. So I wasn't even aware of the new discount minimums for coupons until I was looking at one of my listings and I was like why is my coupon not on? We used to really heavily do that like 5% coupon on one week, off the next week, five on the next week, just to keep some like badging on our listings Because we believe that has a really significant impact in like bestseller ranking and organic ranking and keywords. So we used to do that quite a lot. We're not doing that anymore just because we can't afford to be that steep of a discount on coupons. So we haven't actually come up with what our strategy is going to look like since that is so new. In the last like month-ish, we've kind of just been keeping our normal like promotion strategy and hopefully it doesn't impact sales too much. But that's something I can't answer right now. Bradley Sutton: Okay, yeah, a lot of this stuff is so new that it's going to take us all a little bit to try and figure out what. What we're going general PPC strategy you know PPC is they're doing more adding, as opposed to like taking stuff away or changing big rules. Like I hadn't added new video campaigns in a while like could have been maybe a year even and then I noticed, like a couple months ago, now all of a sudden I can do ASIN targeting video campaigns and keyword targeting video because I'm like, oh, that's new, that's pretty cool. But, like you know, Amazon's always launching new kinds of targeting and new kinds of, you know, what is it called for the sponsor brand? Is it like the vertical ads and things like that? What new-ish things are you doing, if any, on the advertising side? Grace: Yeah. So I agree with you. I think if you're not in Amazon every day, you're missing something. So that's something that I try to do. I'm not like actively in charge of PPC or managing campaigns, but I always like to stay abreast of like all the new different techniques and see how it works with the team. One thing that I'm really excited to try is the new store spotlight format, where you can actually click to different store pages in the sponsor brand placement, which I think looks really cool. If anything else, definitely, want to test to see if it drives extra sales. Grace: One thing for us that's challenging with sponsored brand ads, though, is as a reseller, and a lot of times we're not the exclusive reseller. Spending on sponsored ads for sponsored brands leads to sales for the brand but not necessarily sales for us. So if you're rotating in the buy box spend on sponsor brand, you're driving sales for the brand. It's not necessarily just for us. So how do we manage that? That's been a hot topic for us. Bradley Sutton: Are you personally doing anything on other platforms, be it Walmart, TikTok shop, or if so, or if not, is there anybody at your company who is focused on those channels? Grace: Yes, we are. We are really focused on TikTok shop right now. We've been using it more so as like an awareness driving tactic, more so than a sales driving tactic right now is a lot of the brands that we work with are more in a premium price point, so we've found that the TikTok items that work the best are really kind of almost that impulse item. So we've been using it to drive awareness, drive conversations around the products that we sell and the brands that we work with. And we've seen great halo effects on Amazon with branded search going up as engagement and content goes up for the brand on TikTok. So we've been using TikTok shop in that way. Grace: In terms of Walmart, that's always been a strategy for us. Transparently, Walmart just hasn't been a volume driver for us. It's been a steady but it hasn't really been a place that's warranted a ton of focus for us. But another marketplace that has been great for us is actually Target's marketplace, Target Plus, and that's been a key piece of our success, especially with working with brands who are looking for store placement at Target. For example, we've had a few items that we've listed on Target's marketplace that have done really well that have gotten the attention of a buyer and actually got store placement, which is really exciting. And at the end of the day, getting an item placed on shelves most of the time can drive more volume than a mid-tier listing on Amazon, so we tend to try to use that strategy. Bradley Sutton: How do you get on target these days, like wasn't it invite only back in the day or now that Target is adding that 360 or some kind of like? Grace: Yeah, I think it might still be invite only, but I know they've been actively adding a lot of sellers. I know that their back end is still quite archaic compared to what Amazon is. It's probably what Walmart was like four years ago. But I think it is still invite only but definitely something to reach out to your connections and see if you can get a connect with a Walmart e-comm buyer. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I mean, that's what I've been saying about Walmart for years is the end game and the reason for Walmart.com. You know there's people who say, oh, you know, like you know a lot of the SKUs, I'll just have like 10% of my Amazon sales. No, you're not trying to. I mean sure, if it's profitable, why not increase your sales by 10%? But the main end game is you could get on the radar of Walmart buyers potentially and go 1P which increases. And then the next step is getting into 4,000 Walmart stores, which is like yes, is now going to dwarf your Amazon sales even. But on the target side totally makes sense. That you know there's not that many people buying. You know consumers buying stuff on Target compared to Walmart or Amazon's even less than Walmart. But then that's not the end game. The end game is if you can get well like, give me an example, some of those that you said you've been able to get them in Target stores, like those POs are for what? Like how many units? Like thousands, right? Grace: Yes, tens of thousands. Bradley Sutton: Tens of thousands, wow. Grace: And what's also really cool about Target's marketplace is that it's gated from a seller perspective. So once you list a product on Target, it is gated for you to sell it, which I know has become more and more an issue on Amazon, with unauthorized resellers and different brand protection strategies that are maybe a little bit gray market. So I think that's something that is really interesting to sellers who fight for the Buy Box on Amazon, and it's a little bit of a relief to be able to list it and not have to check it or wait for the Helium 10 notification to come up that the Buy Box has changed and also your advertising spend, as you can continue to advertise when you have a Buy Box. It's something that we love about Target. Bradley Sutton: Going back to Amazon, now. Let's say you've got a brand who's launching a new product, what is your go-to launch strategy these days? Obviously gone are the days of things like two-step URLs and search, find, buys and giveaways and things like that. So for your launch, are you just doing PPC and maybe having a lower price, or you're only launching stuff where there's already some kind of brand recognition, where you don't have to do too much special? Grace: We do both. So we've worked with brands who have sold on Amazon for a long time and already have hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for their brand on Amazon and we've also worked with brands that are brand new and maybe are selling a new product that doesn't quite fit into a category that exists yet on Amazon. From a review perspective, we definitely lean on Amazon Vine. I think it has been getting better - the quality of reviews and just the ease of use of that tool, just to ensure that we're adhering to Amazon's policies. But just from an overall launch strategy, we've been thinking about top of funnel marketing a lot more. It's easiest to win when you have branded search on Amazon already, just so you're showing up on that first page of search results. But we've been using we talked about TikTok shop. Using TikTok is a really important part of our launch strategy and also just advertising outside of Amazon. So working with content creators to introduce a brand or introduce a product, if it's like a new product line under a brand that maybe people are already familiar about, using promotion codes that type of thing, as well. Are you then those influencers sending people to a TikTok shop product, or sending people to go search on Amazon, or a mixture of both? Grace: We'll mostly send to TikTok shop, but we do see just like an organic halo effect and someone sees it on Amazon. They maybe have more trust for the marketplace and they go and try to find the product on Amazon. So we've got a couple of cool case studies on that. Bradley Sutton: I probably should have asked this at the beginning. But, just like you know, I know you don't have the numbers in front of you, but if you were to talk about last year's sales or projected 2024 over all the stuff that your company manages, what do you think it's going to be on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop and Target rough? You know I don't need exactly. Yeah. Grace: So our goal is always double every year and we have in the last two, three years, as we've expanded marketplaces, our brand partnerships and ASIN count. I think the ASIN count that I manage right now on Amazon is upwards of 50,000 ASINs, so we're always adding more products. It's so many. Grace: That's a topic for a different time of how frustrating that can be at some time. But I mean we're in the triple digit millions going into 2024, at least for the e-commerce side of things. So it's really exciting and there's a lot of growth ahead of us and I think the biggest challenge for us as a three-piece seller and a distributor is managing the profitability and the agency side of our house is looking a lot in terms of outlook is looking a lot more profitable for us. Bradley Sutton: Nice, nice. What about what's this number two thing, so the nine figures? Is Amazon only or everything together? I mean, obviously it's going to be everything, but does Amazon by itself hit that? Grace: Or not everything together? I mean yes, Amazon by itself hits that. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so what's number two then marketplace? Grace: Target. Bradley Sutton: Target over Walmart, what in the world? Grace: It is. It is. Bradley Sutton: What? That's a shocker. Grace: It is. But again, like I said, that we work with a lot more premium products and premium brands tend to lean more towards the Target customer rather than the Walmart customer. So it's probably Amazon, Target, Walmart, TikTok, right now, but that will probably change pretty rapidly. Bradley Sutton: For TikTok, where is the inventory coming from for the orders. Are you doing fulfilled by TikTok or is it coming from Amazon? Grace: No, we're doing MCF from Amazon FBA centers. We can also drop ship from our own 3PLs as well, but we like MCF cause it's easier on us. Bradley Sutton: Amazon strategies. You know like things are changing on Amazon. New data points you know come out like search query performance and new things in product opportunity. Explore just in the day, today, things of Amazon. What new things is part of your SOPs now. That maybe wasn't there two years ago. Or maybe you just think you've got some unique strategies even on something that's been around for a while because you know you can't get to nine figures without having some cool unique strategies. That's setting you apart from the competition. Grace: Yeah, I love using the Product Opportunity Explorer. It's now a daily part of what I do. I also use it to do competitive research, which might be a little bit different. So grabbing an ASIN that I'm interested in learning more about and looking at the customer insights, specifically around returns, which is a hot button topic, obviously, with this new fee coming into place with if your return rate is higher than what the threshold of the category is, there's new fees that come into play. So, just understanding what those negative insights are about your competing products and taking advantage of those in your content and I mean in your second image or in your first bullet point has been something that's worked really well for us. And as I'm going and I'm potentially auditing a new brand partner or I'm doing a pitch for new business, I'm always looking at that. I think the data that Amazon's been able to provide there is really useful and we've never had that access before. It's always been like here's how much they sell directionally. Here's what their seller ranking is. Here's the keywords that they rank on. Grace: Here's what the keyword sales are but, like, the actual sentiment from the customers is really interesting. And something that we like to use in our content Bradley Sutton: Favorite Helium 10 tool and why? Grace: I like the Cerebro. I love doing keyword research, as we just talked about and I think, finding those niche keywords and using those in your PPC. Even though it's an old strategy, it works and it's always changing and not everyone has auto campaigns anymore, so it's something that's really important to do and I still like to do it because I love to know, like, what's changing. And another, really important, like leading or trailing indicator either one would be like branded search around your competitors branded search, so just understanding how many people less are searching for your competitors versus you. I think that provides a really unique opportunity to win. Bradley Sutton: Okay. If I were to give you the keys to the Helium 10 Product Roadmap. Something you know like hey, you're in charge of all of our product team a tool or a feature or a function that we don't have that you need, what would it be? Grace: I have two, okay, I think I asked about this already but Target Plus. I'd love to get a plugin, cause I love your dashboard, where I can see, like all my different marketplaces US, Canada, Mexico, Walmart all of that rolled up into one. I know it's probably still far out, but that would be really cool to be able to see that. Maybe TikTok shop I don't know if that's coming or maybe Bradley Sutton: What would help on TikTok shop specifically? Grace: I really like the sales product performance. That's like when I come in the morning I'm like what sold yesterday. That's where I'm looking okay and that's probably my favorite part about selling on Amazon is just seeing what's selling and how I can sell more of it. And then the second piece of it would be a Walmart ask. I know there's a tool where we're able to see kind of what the sales are on the listings for Walmart. I think there's probably opportunity to get that tool just sharpened a little bit so we really can see where the opportunity is on Walmart. I think there's still a lot of questions from everyone on like who's winning on Walmart? Like we know like CPGs are winning, but what brands are winning? There's a lot of information about amazon brands who are winning, but I think Walmart's still a little bit of a Black Box. So any tools that are available from an Amazon perspective, rolling those out and sharpening them for Walmart, would be great too. Bradley Sutton: Cool, cool, all right. So, what other strategies can you help people with out there who you know like, obviously it. You know somebody might be listening to this and like, well, what does this apply to me? I'm not a nine figure, I'm not even an eight figure or even seven figure seller, but some strategies that you're doing that, hey, even if somebody's new on Amazon or maybe you know six figure seller, they could. They could definitely be doing something you haven't mentioned yet today. Grace: Yeah, I think I'm going to speak to specifically the apparel and footwear and jewelry sellers out there. It's really hard to manage the assortment and I know I manage the 50,000 ASIN count, but we've developed processes internally to make that a lot easier. And I know catalog management is probably a hot button topic for all those apparel sellers out there. Managing sizes, colors, widths, all of that, tracking the variations that's something we can help with. So, whether it's managing variations, bringing them into one listing, separating them out, testing variation strategy, that's something that's kind of niche that we do all the time with our footwear brands to see how we can gain more share of shelf or share of click on different keywords, mostly branded. And then there's also way different style guidelines for apparel and footwear and we've learned how to harness those and utilize those to the best of our abilities. So just know that you don't have to do that on your own. There's agencies and sellers out there that specialize in just that and can help you free up your time to work on the strategic stuff and we can handle the catalog management side of it. Bradley Sutton: Last question I guess would be you know, I'm assuming maybe you might use some AI things, especially having to manage so many listings like have you leverage AI in your amazon management business and, if so, how? Grace: Yes, we've definitely started utilizing it from a copy perspective. We use a bunch of different AI tools, but one thing that's worked for us is taking our keyword research, plugging it into pick the engine that you want to use, give them your product description and have them help at least get a starting point for what your bullet points and your title should be. It just saves so much time instead of sitting there and being like okay, here are my keywords, here's what I want to say, but I don't need to type all of it out on my own. So, yes, it's not going to be perfect, but it's a great place to start and, honestly, a great place to start with really anything, whether it's Amazon copy images or even just writing an email to a brand partner or a proposal to leadership it. Leadership Like it's just a super helpful tool that'll save time across the board. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Cool. All right. Last non-Amazon question. I see your Instagram. You're traveling a lot, favorite travel spots and what's on the bucket list for you that you haven't been to? Grace: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So recently my friends and I rented a beach house in Oak Island, North Carolina. It's like a tiny little town on the coast, but it was so beautiful and so fun and it was like a great way to disconnect. We literally saw dolphins from our balcony. It's like so cool. Bradley Sutton: Wow. Grace: So that was really fun. I was just kind of wholesome and nice to be able to unplug a little bit, although I never truly unplugged because slightly addicted to selling on amazon. Um, that's why we're here, right. And then, in terms of bucket list, I've never been to Europe, which is crazy. I need to get to Italy. I'm such a wine person, I'm such a like I love food. So that is on my bucket list. I hope I can get out in the next few years. Bradley Sutton: Maybe get your boss to send you to. We're doing a it's not Italy, but nearby to Madrid. End of May we are doing a workshop, high-end workshop, in Madrid. So, that could be an opportunity to business expense for your company and learn some new strategies. And you get to, you know, maybe make a side trip to Italy on your own dime. So if anybody else is interested, I'll know. I going to try and get Grace to go. h10.me/elitespain. It's open to everybody to join. All right, well, Grace, thank you so much for coming on here. It's been great to see all that you've accomplished on Amazon. I wish you the best of success in the future and maybe we'll bring you back on and let's see how you know how deep into the hundreds of millions that your company has been able to sell next year. Grace: I want to plug. I have an amazing team. This is not just me. I just happen to be the voice of them so I want to make sure I give them a shout out too. Bradley Sutton: If somebody wants to like maybe find you on the interwebs. I mean you can be incognito if you want, you don't have to answer this. But how can they find you out there? Grace: Yeah, so if you're interested in services from PowerPlay, powerplayretail.com, find us on LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm also like a LinkedIn crazy person, so I will respond probably in the first one minute but that's the easiest way to reach me. Bradley Sutton: Is the founder of your company, like a hockey fan or something. Is that the name? Is that where PowerPlay comes from? Grace: I get that question a lot. No, but we always like use that as kind of like a hook, and we're also in Minnesota so hockey and Minnesota. Bradley Sutton: So that's what I was about to say. Minnesota is a hockey. Yeah, okay, all right, well, Grace. Grace: PowerPlay Hockey Jerseys, so I will say. Bradley Sutton: Hey, you know me about my Helium 10 jersey, so I'm all about those jerseys. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us and I hope to see you at maybe what Amazon Accelerate in Seattle, where's the next one. Grace: Yeah, I'll be at Accelerate. I'll be bopping around to different conferences but maybe I'll see you in Spain. Bradley Sutton: Hey, let's do it. Let's do it, all right, we'll see you later, Grace.

Join us for an exciting episode as we delve into the latest developments in the retail world! Alongside sharing updates on Stetson's pregnancy journey, we explore the dynamic landscape of influencer programs. From Amazon Live to Walmart and Target's brand new creator initiatives, we dissect what these platforms mean for content creators like us. Tune in to gain insights and strategies on how we plan to integrate these opportunities into our influencer journey! Everything Envy Links: Amazon Store: ⁠⁠Shop Everything Envy⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠Everything.Envy⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠EverythingEnvy⁠⁠ Pinterest: ⁠⁠EverythingEnvyy⁠⁠ Facebook Group: ⁠⁠EE Amazon Deals⁠⁠ Sign up for our newsletter: ⁠⁠EE Newsletter⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠Everything Envy⁠⁠ Affiliate Link: ⁠⁠AppSumo⁠⁠ Affiliate Link: ⁠⁠ClickFunnels⁠⁠ ******* The TECH tools we use in our podcast recording studio: ⁠⁠⁠Influencer⁠⁠⁠ Our ⁠⁠Free Vision Board Template⁠⁠ ******* Home Tour of our Studio House on Amazon Beyond: ⁠3D Tour⁠ Check out our blog for amazing behind the scenes pics: ⁠Blog⁠ Are you interested in becoming an Amazon Influencer? Click ⁠HERE⁠ to learn more! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/everythingenvypodcast/support

Today, Jon from Contract Diagnostics, discusses the changing landscape of healthcare with major players like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway entering the field. He anticipates the impact of artificial intelligence on healthcare in 2024 but notes the challenges faced by these companies in executing their plans.  Jon believes that while technology may play a role, the personal relationship between patients and physicians will endure, especially in private practices. He suggests that despite advancements, the traditional model of healthcare, with a focus on personal service, will persist.  Jon concludes by promoting Contract Diagnostics' personalized approach to physician contract care and compensation analysis. Jon invites individuals to contact Contract Diagnostics through phone, chat, or email for personalized assistance, visit www.ContractDiagnostics.com

We're back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10's Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week. Amazon Hosted Record-Breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday Holiday Shopping Event, and Announces Millions More Holiday Deals to Come https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/amazon-hosted-record-breaking-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-holiday-shopping-event-and-announces-millions-more-holiday-deals-to-come They did it again! Shopify merchants break Black Friday record with $4.1 billion in sales https://news.shopify.com/they-did-it-again-shopify-merchants-break-black-friday-record-with-41-billion-in-sales Save the date for Amazon #unBoxed2024 in Austin, Texas. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7135687573812768768/ Focus: Walmart shifts to India, cuts China imports https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/walmart-shifts-india-china-cheaper-imports-2023-11-29/ Stay tuned as we explore Helium 10's newest features, including an exclusive AI-powered image generator for Amazon Sponsored Brand ads and the ability to generate custom images for Amazon ads and  Amazon Posts. We'll be sharing hands-on demonstrations on how to use these features and their potential benefits for third-party sellers. Plus, we have news on a monthly networking call in Spanish, designed to help Spanish-speaking sellers connect and share strategies. Join us for all this and more as we continue to provide you with innovative tools and updates that are transforming the Amazon and E-commerce landscape.   In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley talks about: 00:52 - Amazon 3D Images 02:32 - Amazon Black Friday 04:31 - Shopify Black Friday 05:17 - Amazon Unboxed 06:02 - Amazon Transparency 07:01 - Made In India 08:45 - Spanish Networking Call  09:50 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts 16:54 - Pro Training: How To Instantly The Most Searched Word On Amazon   ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Soon, you can upload 3D images for your products on Amazon. Results from Black Friday. Amazon Unbox Conference date and new location announced. Amazon transparency update these stories and more on today's episode of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the news stories that are going on in the Amazon Walmart e-commerce world. We also let you know on the brand new tools and feature updates that Helium 10 has, as well as a training tip of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing this week. All right, let's go ahead and hop right into the different news articles Now. The first one was an announcement this week from Seller Central itself, so you can see this in your dashboard, and it's entitled 3D models to replace 360 degree images starting December 14th. All right now. This is going to be for US, UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy. All right now.   Bradley Sutton: In the past, you could supposedly it says here you could put 360 degree images. Now, project X products had it, project 5K products had it. We never requested it. It was like Amazon just choosing to do on your own. I never actually heard of many people, if any, who were able to request the 360 degree images where you can kind of like put your finger in the app and like drag it around and see the whole thing. I've never actually known somebody who outside of like vendor central who could request that. But regardless, 360 degree images are going to be a thing of the past. And what is replacing it are these view in 3D, different kind of like experiences, view in your room, virtual try-on and showroom? So this was announced a while back at, I believe it was Amazon Accelerate. There was some talk about this. Now, what Amazon is going to come out with, what they said is, hey, to make it easier if you do create 3D models. It's not like we have like imaging software, right, they're working on a tool that'll allow you to use your phone in order to scan your product and create a 3D model. So more news on that coming soon, they say. But that is a change that is pretty imminent, because it says, hey, this is going to happen in December 14th.   Bradley Sutton: All right, so next article is going to be also from Amazon. It was a press release that they did, and this is about Black Friday results, right? This article says Amazon hosted record breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping event and announces millions more holiday deals to come. All right, now I don't know how they calculated this, but they said customer save 70% more on Amazon during its 11 days from November 17th through Cyber Monday compared to the same period last year. Now it also cited a recent independent study from Profitero and it said that Amazon had the lowest online prices entering the holiday season, by an average of 16% across 15 different categories, compared to other leading retailers in the US, and they're on pace to deliver fastest delivery speeds for Prime members in the company's 29 year history 29 year history I didn't even know Amazon's been around for 29 years. That's crazy. Anyways, just some random stats here that Amazon talked about says customers ordered more than 500 million items from third party sellers. All right, and so that's a lot. This is just again. During 11 day period, and also some new programs started getting the limelight with their first kind of Black Friday. It says for the first time, prime members purchased great deals directly from Buy With Prime merchants during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday event. And it said merchants who participated in promotional activities experienced an aggregate more than a 300% increase in units purchased through Buy With Prime versus their daily average for the month of October.   Bradley Sutton: So let me know out there, what about you guys? Anybody have some good numbers to report? I heard some people say hey, you know, cyber Monday actually worked out better than Black Friday, but how is your whole Cyber Five altogether? You know how was it from Thursday all the way through Monday? Let me know in the comments below, speaking of Black Friday, how many of you guys have Shopify websites? An article from Shopify, similar press release, says they did it again. Shopify merchants break Black Friday record with $4.1 billion in sales. So it says hey, from the crack of dawn in New Zealand, which is where you know, it becomes Black Friday first through the final minutes in California. Well, that's not right. The final minutes of Black Friday is in Hawaii. It says our merchants drove a 22% increase in sales over last year Shopping peak, when collective sales reached 4.2 million dollars per minute At 12 pm Eastern on Friday. Uh, what about you guys out there who've got Shopify websites. How is your Shopify Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Uh?   Bradley Sutton: Going back to amazon now there's an announcement on amazon ads linked in Uh for amazon unboxed. You might remember amazon unboxed just a few weeks ago in New York, where it's been the last couple of years, you know, we did a podcast live there. They announced all kinds of cool stuff like sponsored tv and things like that. Well, uh, is amazon unboxed going to be in New York? Uh, in October next year? Well, it is going to still be in October, but guess what, guys? Uh, it is now moving to drumroll, please, Austin Texas. All right, so save the date, guys. If you miss this year's unboxed Uh marketing your calendars. Amazon unboxed 2024 for the first time Austin Texas, October 14th through 16th.   Bradley Sutton: Next article, going back to amazon seller central Uh, we announced this update a while back, where they kind of teased that this was coming, and now it's uh going to be in effect, and this is about amazon transparency. Amazon transparencies, a way to to help kind of uh dissuade counterfeit sales of your product. And they now announced amazon being that you can now have use your own serial numbers for transparency. All right, this is new, you know, you don't have to use theirs. You can use your own Uh serial numbers. And, again, you know, if you are uh active with your products in transparency, it means that they can't be listed or shipped to customers without valid codes. So if you have trouble, like with hijackers and things, basically this means that people you know, other sellers trying to like, list your or you know, add their uh the skew to your ASIN, it's not going to get accepted or shipped if it doesn't have these transparency uh codes. So for more information on that, check your uh dashboard.   Bradley Sutton: Now interesting article. This one is coming from Reuters and it was entitled Walmart Shifts to India Cuts China Imports. Now, this is interesting because, uh, it basically said that they're moving more for the Walmart products that they produce themselves. They're moving the production more and more to India. All right, the world's largest retailer, Walmart, this article says, shipped one quarter Of its us imports from India between January and august this year. All right, that compared with in 2018 2018, guess how much? 2% it went from 2% to 25% being produced in India in just the last five years. The data, according to those articles, shows that it only 60% of its shipment only quote, unquote, only came from China. Now, the reason why it's only 60% is because in 2018, it was 80% of all of Walmart's products were made in China. But China is obviously still Walmart's biggest country, but it talks about, you know, hey, there's a shift happening at Walmart, you know.   Bradley Sutton: Guess what guys? Project x, all of our products have been made in China. Until Two months ago, we produced our very first product in where? India? All right, so that is going to be coming. You're going to see a feature podcast where we talk about the development Of that product, and we'll have Meghla on here. She helped us source it.   Bradley Sutton: But big companies like Walmart, amazon, third-party sellers more and more are moving production outside of China. What about you? Are you still producing everything in China? Are you producing in India? You producing in Pakistan or other countries? Let me know in the comments below, all right, uh, one more thing before we get into some really cool feature announcements. We're not gonna some moss. I'll let spaniel.   Bradley Sutton: So one more thing Do you speak Spanish? We have our very first monthly networking call in the Spanish language starting next week. All right, this is going to be something that will be hosted by our Serious Sellers Podcast en Español host, Adriana Rangel, and this first one is going to be on December the 6th All right market calendars, December the 6th, at 4 pm Pacific time. And then, for those who speak Spanish, for everybody who speaks Spanish go to h10.me/llamadaconadriana. h10.me/llamadaconadriana. Go to that website and you'll be able to register for the zoom. So again, if you guys want a network with other Spanish speaking sellers, whether you're here in the States, in Latin America, in Europe, in Spain, wherever you are in the world, go ahead and sign up. This will be a monthly Networking call where you can, you know, talk about what's working, what's not working in your business, get some help and I might, you know, pop in there every now and then as well.   Bradley Sutton: All right, let's get into the helium 10 new feature alerts, and we've got some doozies today, guys. Whoo, the Helium 10 product team is been cooking with fire for sure. All right, the very first one is guess what, guys? Helium 10 kind of low-key now has an AI generating or an AI Powered image generator. All right, now, this is actually the Amazon Sponsored a brand ad image generator. But I'm gonna show you, guys, how you can use it for Amazon post. You can use it for you know, potentially lifestyle images or infographics, or getting you know other ideas for your, for your images. It's not perfect right now, but this is cool. The only place Outside of Amazon that you can get this tool is in helium 10. Why, cuz? Amazon chose helium 10 to be its exclusive partner, namely in atomic? Amazon chose helium 10 atomic to be the exclusive software for now. It'll open it up later to others, but we are the only ones that you can get this in. Let me show you how it works, all right.   Bradley Sutton: So basically, you go to your atomic and then you hit a new campaign. Once you get into your campaign builder, you're gonna want to hit single campaign. Once you get there, you're going to want to hit sponsored brand, the middle one. Once you hit sponsored brand, you're gonna hit next and then here you are going to go ahead and Put enter a couple of your products from the brand that you are trying to do. You know an image for, so I'm gonna go ahead and choose what up right here on my screen the helium 10, a coffin bookshelf and Coffin coffin egg tray here and then scroll down. Make sure under sponsor brand campaign, you select the actual brand that you're trying to do this actually kind of doesn't matter, because you're gonna be able to enter your own images yourself. But since I'm actually gonna do one for the coffin shelf, the coffin bookshelf, I'm gonna go ahead and choose Manny's mysterious oddities. Now, once you select that, you scroll down here to this new section called Creative.   Bradley Sutton: Now, the whole purpose of this is actually to create sponsored brand, so you can actually create the, the custom sponsored brand image right here. But I'm gonna show, I'm showing you guys, how to just create any image you want right now. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna first just do this coffin bookshelf and I'm gonna put a different background, all right. So right here, under custom image, you're going to hit AI generated image, all right. Now I'm gonna go ahead and since, like I said, I'm gonna use the coffin bookshelf, so I'm gonna go ahead and choose that again here.   Bradley Sutton: Now what I'm going to do is, in this prompt, I'm gonna say what I want I it to be like in the room. So I'm going to say put this coffin bookshelf hanging on a light colored wall and there are other bat themed decor items hanging on the wall, all right. So I mean that that's just a super, a super simple thing right here. I can actually choose theme here, so I'm not going to. I'm not going to choose a theme for this. Let's just see what happens. This usually takes about a minute to do, so I'll come back as soon as it generates and here we go.   Bradley Sutton: Now, you know, sometimes you're going to get some crazy stuff, like here it actually changed our coffin bookshelf a little bit, but take a look, you know, here it put. It did exactly what I said. I said, hey, put it on a light colored wall and you could see, here's the coffin bookshelf hanging on a wall and there's some like bat shape, like little decor items on the wall. Now I will. I did not give it a good prompt. You know, I only wrote about 121 characters. I can write up to 300. I didn't even include a theme, but you, you know you can get pretty specific.   Bradley Sutton: Now, is this AI going to be perfect? No, this is coming directly from Amazon, you know so. Helium 10 doesn't have control over this. So you know, like, if you're not getting good output, it's it's. You know that's because Amazon's AI is not great yet. But again, this is using connecting directly to the API, to the Amazon's AI generation, and what I can do here is I can actually, you know, choose some of these. I can zoom in and then I can actually save these. I can select them and save them right here, download it. I can save it to my creative assets. So it's kind of like a cool way to, you know, generate Amazon post images without ever even leaving helium 10. So that's the first thing that I wanted to talk about today. The second thing is also super, super cool, requested by a lot of our users, and this is wherever you see keywords in your insights dashboard and cerebro, in magnet.   Bradley Sutton: You know, sometimes you see a whole bunch of keywords and you know you can see the, the score there for how important the keyword is, you know, based on maybe it's search volume or or competitor performance score. But sometimes you're not quite sure how maybe what I call real world relevant the keyword is like, for example, you know, coffin shelf. I think you could understand that probably all the results are coffin shelf. That's the top 10 on page one. But what about other keywords like coffin decor? Maybe it's not coffin shelves, but just random coffin products, and so what, what have you always had to do before.   Bradley Sutton: If you just want to kind of take a quicker or a quick look at the results of, you know, keywords in cerebral magnet, well, you would click one by one on those keywords and take a look at them on Amazon. Well, now you know you're not going to have to do that anymore. Let me show you exactly what you can do. Anywhere where you have cerebral magnet, any keywords, you just have to put your mouse over it, like so, for example, if I want to say what is in coffin shelf, I just put my mouse over and I can see they're mostly coffin shelves here. But then maybe I'm like, all right, well, what about goth gifts? Are there any goth gifts that are showing up here in, you know, for coffin shelves? And I can just all I do, I'm not clicking on anything. I just put my mouse over here and I can see there's some Spooky looking slippers or some skulls, and I'm not actually seeing any coffin shelves in the top 10. So now I know you know what this, this keyword you know, probably might not be too too relevant here. I can look at a coffin box. I'm like, hey, what kind of things are coming up for coffin box? Okay, there is one coffin shelf, but the rest of these are just like maybe some jewelry boxes. So again, I am not clicking on anything, but now anywhere where there's a key where I can put my mouse over. So we're get an idea about the last time healing.   Bradley Sutton: Then 10 check the top 10 results Little thumbnails that show what products were ranking for these keywords. I could see their price, how many variations they have, how many reviews they have. You know, that can be cool, like instantly I might see a keyword was like wow, look at this. Out of the top 10, most everybody only had, like you know, 10 reviews or 20 reviews. So like it's a great way to do product research as well. So I hope you guys can enjoy these two new feature updates from helium 10. Make sure you use it and let me know what you think.   Bradley Sutton: All right, last up, today we have our training tip of the week, and this one is going to be courtesy of Carrie, and this is another keyword based strategy where, in seconds, if you want to find the Keywords that have the most search volume, that start with a word or two words or three words, within seconds. Again, this is one of those no click strategies like. This last one I gave you was a no click strategy. This strategy has zero clicks. How can you see what are the top searched keywords that start with any word or phrase? Carrie, take it away.   Carrie: I'm going to show you how to instantly find the most search terms that start with a specific Keyword. It's very easy and it's something that you can do for Low-key keyword research. If you're just kind of curious about something, maybe you found a product that you want to kind of look a little bit more into. You can see what the top phrases are that start with that particular keyword, and I'm going to show you how to do it. Right now. All you have to do is you just need to go to magnet and it's very, very simple. The next thing you're going to do is you're just going to start typing so we sell a coffin shell. So I'm just going to type in the word coffin and with this it's going to basically show me all the keywords that start with coffin. That in the order of the most searched to the least search. So we've got coffin nail tips. That is the most searched, and the next is coffin, and then the next coffin press on nails. So we can take it even further. We want to say I want to see all the keywords that start with coffin shelf from the most, you know, search to the least. So we've got coffin shelf, coffin shelf, large. So all these great keywords.   Carrie: Another thing you can maybe try like the most popular search term or search product is garlic press, so maybe we can look at garlic Okay, so we've got garlic, garlic press, garlic powder, so we can say garlic press here and see if there's any other keywords. It looks like garlic press stainless steel is the next most searched Garlic press. Oh, so, as you can see, this is a great way to find. You know, kind of do some low key keyword research and you can see all the keywords that start that exact keyword that you want to find, and In the order of the highest search volume to lowest. So I hope you check it out. It's very, very easy and really interesting to take a look at.   Bradley Sutton: All right, thank you very much, Carrie, and thank you guys all for tuning in this week. I will see you next week to see what's buzzing.

In today's "Retail Daily Minute," we delve into four leading stories that are shaping the retail industry:Our first headline spotlights the launch of the world's first checkout-free store at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, powered by Amazon's Just Walk Out technology. This revolutionary store, Market Express, offers a seamless shopping experience to patients, visitors, and staff. Next, we cover Walmart's innovative foray into shoppable entertainment with "Add to Heart," a 23-part romantic comedy series on social media platforms, blending storytelling with convenient shopping. Our third story highlights Ikea's expansion into affordable smart home technology, introducing three new Zigbee sensors: Parasoll, Vallhorn, and Badring, set to revolutionize home automation with their accessibility and functionality. Lastly, we discuss DoorDash's new partnership with Best Buy, marking a significant expansion into consumer electronics delivery, and offering fast and convenient service just in time for the holiday season. Stay updated on these and more groundbreaking retail developments with our Retail Daily Minute!

Today on our show:Holiday deals kick off with Amazon, Walmart and TargetAre people and processes keeping up with eCommerce technology?eBay sued in a DOJ environmental lawsuitPrivate equity exits decliningAnd finally, The Investor Minute, which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

We're back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10's Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from, and provide a training tip for the week. Amazon planning major AI revamp that will change the search experience https://searchengineland.com/amazon-revamp-change-search-experience-432913 Walmart experiments with generative AI tools that can help you plan a party or decorate https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/04/walmart-experiments-with-new-generative-ai-tools-that-can-help-you-plan-a-party-or-decorate-a-space/ TikTok halts e-commerce service in Indonesia following ban https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/tiktok-halts-e-commerce-service-in-indonesia-following-ban.html Report: Amazon made $1B with secret algorithm for spiking prices Internet-wide https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/report-amazon-made-1b-with-secret-algorithm-for-spiking-prices-internet-wide/ Serious Sellers Podcast #497 – Amazon Vine 101 + Changes to the Vine Program! https://www.helium10.com/podcast/amazon-vine-101-changes-to-the-vine-program/ Etsy "experiments” lead to loss of income for many Sellers. Sellers noticed a significant decrease in sales without knowing why. After the issue began to be addressed in Etsy Forums, sellers did not know whether it was a technical problem or an "experiment". https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2023/10/1696187388.html Shopify CEO discouraging staff from side hustles that divert attention from company https://torontosun.com/business/money-news/shopify-ceo-discouraging-staff-from-side-hustles-that-divert-attention-from-company Lastly, we delve into the ins and outs of Helium 10's Keyword Tracker and it's boost button which allows you to track your keywords 24 hours a day in various browsing scenarios, a tactic endorsed by none other than Manny Coats, the founder of Helium 10. We discover the direct impact of inventory levels, keyword ranks, and inventory heat maps on your page views and impressions. To top it all off, we'll teach you how to prepare for the unexpected by setting up alerts for sudden drops in keyword ranks and understanding how your inventory location might affect shipping times. This episode is packed full of insights, strategies, and revelations that every serious seller must know - so get ready and join us for the ride!   In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley discussed: 01:12 - Amazon AI Search 04:02 - Walmart AI Search 07:11 - TikTok Shop Closes 07:45 - Secret Amazon Algorithm? 12:42 - Amazon Vine New Prices 13:34 - Etsy Testing Troubles 14:55 - Shopify Side Hustle 16:15 - Catch Helium 10 In Rumble 16:30 - ProTraining Tip: Boosted Keyword Tracking in Browsing Scenarios 28:52 - Keyword Fluctuation & Inventory Impact on Amazon Rankings ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Amazon and Walmart are all in on generative AI search. TikTok shop in a certain country closes. Is there a secret Amazon algorithm that costs consumers a billion dollars, plus a special in-depth pro training on why you should be tracking keywords at different browsing scenarios. All of this and more on today's episode of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the news stories that's going on in the Amazon, Walmart and e-commerce world and we give you training tips of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing this week. We've got a lot of news articles that we're going to go over today. And make sure to stay to the end, because I'm going to go in-depth on a topic that I think might change the way you track your keywords. Nothing new, but it's something that you guys need to be doing, and I'm going to demonstrate exactly why it's important. So let's go ahead and hop into the news right now. The first article that we're going to go over is actually from searchengineland.com and it's entitled Amazon Planning Major AI Revamp that will change the search experience. This article says All right, now, this was a document that they're calling this project Nile or something like that, but basically they're talking about Amazon creating AI-powered conversational shopping agents. Now, I saw a lot of the documents that this was on and there's some like maybe some contradictory information. Like they did talk about how, like when, non-personalized search results actually perform better, but then, at the same time, they're talking about okay, this new initiative is going to really put an emphasis on personalized search results. So a little bit of contradiction. I'm not sure which side of the coin I'm on, but at this meeting that Amazon had, they said hey, before you commerce, the sales person in the store was your search engine and that individual knew everything about the products. They would look at you and know what you might want, because customers like you have been to that store before. So this is something that has been talked about for a while, about how Amazon is investing heavily in AI, and then the question is going to, of course, end up being well, how is that going to change the seller experience? We don't know. Bradley Sutton: They say this is going to come out sometime in 2024. I find it very, very hard to believe. It's just going to be like some chat GPT prompt. It's going to take over the search bar. I mean the search as it is now. It's hard to beat that. You test, type in two words like coffin shelf, and boom, you get pictures and prices of exactly what you're looking for. How do you beat that? Anything more is going to cost the customer more work. So I don't think this is going to be something that takes over all search, but some niche searches. Maybe somebody might want to go a little bit deeper and say I'm looking for a coffin shaped shelf that customers feel can be used for displaying shot glasses and has multiple color options. Now could there be somebody who might want to search like that? Sure, I'm not one of them. I'm not going to be sitting there typing all those words with my fingers on a phone, but hey, there's definitely going to be people out there who might want that level of detail, and so it's going to be interesting to see how you can do that, how Amazon's going to integrate this. Is this going to change the way Helium 10 works, or the necessity to optimize, or listening for the right keywords and looking at what has search problem? Of course, not, not at all. It might add stuff later on that you might have to optimize for, but the core functionality you guys have been doing probably is going to stay the same, all right. Bradley Sutton: The next article here is from TechCrunch and also about search and AI, this time about Walmart. This article is entitled Walmart experiments with generative AI tools that can help you plan a party or decorate. It's so funny, like these days, like Amazon news comes out with something, Walmart comes out with something similar. Like the next day, Walmart comes out with something and Amazon comes out with something. I love the arms race here. This is good stuff. It's good for sellers, good for consumers, that these giants are kind of like racing to integrate different tools and experiences. Now, Walmart didn't say in this article which AI models it's going to use to develop these features, but they're experimenting with generative AI and it's going to include a shopping assistant, you know, kind of similar to what Amazon was talking about, and it says here that it's going to allow customers to have a more interactive and conversational experience, as it can answer specific questions, provide personalized product suggestions and share detailed information, all right. So this is going to be something interesting, you know, like it gives an example. It says, for example, if a customer wants to plan for a unicorn themed birthday, the AI displays a wide array of products such as balloons, paper napkins, streamers and so on, instead of having to type in numerous separate searches. Walmart's new AI search tools designed to save customers time that wouldn't save me time, like when I'm about to buy something. I know what I want, you know. So, again, this is going to be something that some people are going to love. Some people are like nope, just give me the old search. You know I'm talking about. When I say some people, I mean consumers, you know. So it's going to be interesting how this goes on. Bradley Sutton: Now, if you're, if you guys are, new to AI and have never you know, have never really worked with it, you know, just real quick segue here inside of helium 10, if you want an experience about how this kind of works, it's not shopping, obviously. But inside of helium 10, guys, on the very top right, okay, on the top right of your screen, right next to like, there's a what's new tab. Hit the button that said that that looks like a magnifying glass. All right, looks like a magnifying glass. And if you do that, it actually opens up a chat window. All right. Now this is using, I believe, chat GPT, and you could say things like how do I track keyword ranks daily? I'm just going to give an example here and I enter it in and what this AI is doing is it's looking through, like our videos and our knowledge base and things like that, and then right here it gives an answer to track keyword ranks daily. You can use the keyword tracker feature in helium 10, simply enter the keyword, blah, blah, blah. So so, guys, I'm not sure how many of y'all know that. Let me know in the comments below how many of you guys knew that there's a full chat GPT AI assistant inside of helium-10 that can, like, answer questions on how to use the tools and stuff. So make sure to use that. And then now think about how that's going to look now inside of Amazon, something similar like that. You know something to think about? Bradley Sutton: Alright, let's switch from Amazon and Walmart and let's go to the next article. This is from CNBC and it's entitled TikTok halts E-commerce Service in Indonesia following ban. Alright, this is not new news. We talked about this last week, how in the Indonesian government gave TikTok an ultimatum of one week, say, hey, if you don't remove TikTok shop and make it separate, we're shutting your whole platform down. So what did TikTok do? Like, fine, we're gonna go ahead and and take away, you know, TikTok shop. So that's a huge blow to TikTok because Indonesia is a the largest market for them in that, in that region. So RIP TikTok shop in Indonesia. Bradley Sutton: Next article is from arstechnia.com and it's entitled Report Amazon made one billion dollars with secret algorithm for spiking prices internet-wide. Now this, this is one of those, those articles that kind of made my blood boil. First I'm like, okay, this is interesting, like what this is? You know, this is new stuff that hasn't been talked about and and if this is true, you know, obviously that's an issue, you know. Finally, I was thinking, wow, finally is there a legitimate thing that Amazon is being investigated on by the FTC. But this thing was called they say, codename Project Nessie, and it says it allegedly works by manipulating rivals, weaker pricing algorithms and locking competitors into higher prices. The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years, all right, and helped Amazon improve their profits. Now, first of all, it even says here that they stopped using it in 2019. So, first of all, guys, this has nothing to do with any of you sellers right now, because even the FTC, it seems like, admits that this was stopped in 2019, or somebody said it was stopped in 2019. But the weird thing is here is the FTC alleges says Amazon has successfully taught its rivals that lower prices are unlikely to result in increased sales. The opposite of what could happen in a well-functioned market. Like this doesn't make sense. Bradley Sutton: You know the Amazon price matching. Price matching, like, always helps everybody, you know, except a seller. Sometimes you guys remember how I mean those of you who you know. Four or five years ago even, you know you would shop at Best Buy and then you could like price match Amazon and vice versa. Where you could price, you know, if somebody else had a cheaper, amazon would give you, you know, like, a little rebate. Vice versa, if Target had a cheaper Walmart, you know it would make up the difference and things like that. Like that actually helps consumers, because when somebody's running a coupon, that means, like all the other major players would have to, you know, like, run a coupon or run a discount to try and match it. So like I'm not sure exactly what is the problem for for sellers. Bradley Sutton: Now, you know, amazon right away responded and then they said hey, you know, this was a project. Yeah, there was a such thing as Project Nessie. Who named it? You know, they didn't say, but it says they were trying to stop price matching from resulting in an unusual outcomes where prices became so low that they were unsustainable. Okay, it's kind of kind of reasonable. You know, I'm not a little bit of a not sure what's going on there, but hey, that sounds reasonable, right, they didn't work as intended. They said, so we scrapped it several years ago and they kept saying, hey, this is not how competition works. The FTC has it backwards and if they were successful in this lawsuit, the result would be anti competitive, anti consumer, and that's what I've been saying to you. It's like the things that Amazon, that the FTC was complaining about I don't know about this Nessie thing, but was like hey, amazon is like making sellers match low prices on other websites I mean, that's like for the consumer. It's so weird how the FTC is talking out of both sides. Now, this is just what made my blood kind of boil here. Bradley Sutton: Later on they did a press release the FTC and get a load of this. All right. They said Amazon's far reaching schemes impact hundreds of billions of dollars retail sales over here. First of all, yes, I mean like now, you know, best buy Walmart, everybody's got a price match Amazon, you know. And if Amazon, you know, has these, you know that's why Amazon is doing big deal days. The entirety of Walmart now has a big deal day, or I don't know what they call it, holiday big day or something like that. You know, yes, amazon is is affecting a lot of sales, but in a bad way? I don't think so. It's in a good way. It's in a good way because now everybody has to try and keep up with Amazon. And then take a look at this. They say they touch hundreds of thousands of products sold by businesses, big and small, and affect over a hundred million shoppers. The FTC's press release said sell them. Bradley Sutton: In the history of US antitrust law, has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people Said this dude from the FTC like bro, come on, are you serious around? Like, like we Amazon sellers are, are very scared of this even ever happen? I don't. I personally don't think this is gonna go through, just because it's so, so ridiculous, some of these, these things. But but I mean, you're not helping anybody now who knows? A lot of the FTC thing is still redacted. So who knows? There might be stuff in there that are legitimate complaints, because we know Amazon sellers have a million complaints About Amazon, right, you know there's a lot of things that we don't like. You know, I was just dealing with something today where a removal order was taking like 90 days or something. It's just a pain in the neck sometimes. But the weird thing is the stuff that has been released in this FTC thing, none of it is the stuff that Amazon sellers are mainly complaining about. Yet they're just coming up with this random, random stuff here. Anyways, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole too much. Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and go to more positive news here, and the. The next one's coming from seller central, and it is about a new pricing tiers for Amazon Vine. So now, instead of having to pay $200 from one up to 30 reviews, you can get two reviews in Vine for free. All right, you or you can say hey, no, you know what, I only want to get up to 10 reviews and then that's only gonna be $75 or the existing tier up to 30 for $200. So if you guys want more information on this, we actually interviewed one of the leads At Amazon for the Amazon Vine program. Ah me, she was great. It's her first podcast. She did awesome, so make sure to check that out. Episode 497 you could get that episode h10.me forward slash 497 tons more information in that document or in that podcast about the new Vine program. Bradley Sutton: Switching marketplaces we're going to Etsy. This was from e-commerce bites. It says s e-test lead to lost income from sellers. So we think we got problems on Amazon. Etsy just like on their own, just start deciding to do some tests with the titles. Actually, amazon was doing that too for a while, but Etsy gave no notice for these changes. And then they were. They were just like taking random words out of the title and taking punctuation out of title and making it look like the sellers Can't even speak English because the titles didn't even make any sense. And so at you know Etsy sellers. It says they were trying to go back in and fix the listings and stuff. But it's kind of crazy. You know, like Etsy does so many things, like Etsy remove like a few of my products, saying it violates and, and, and you guys think that Amazon seller support is bad. Etsy is a billion times worse. Let me just say that right now, like there is no support, like like they completely suspend the listing and they say there is no way that you can, you know, follow up on this. It's a final you know, don't even ask us about it. Basically, they sent me a message. I'm like what in the world this is like. This is very you know, this is a legitimate Etsy product. So, guys, you know, like, where there's no marketplace out there, that's gonna be perfect, right? Amazon has mistakes, Esty has mistakes, Walmart has issues. We just got to, you know, figure out a deal with it and move on. Bradley Sutton: Speaking of different Marketplaces, Shopify CEO, is this next article from Toronto Sun? Says he's discouraging staff from side hustles that divert attention From the company. Now, this is just something that doesn't necessarily have to do with e-commerce, but I wanted to get your guys opinion on this because, basically, here he said hey, he doesn't want staff to take on side gigs that divert their attention away from the company, says I'm not talking about, like, yoga classes on the side and coaching a, a soccer team or something. You know my kid soccer team but he didn't want people like doing their own Shopify stores and then having it like go big. He's saying, hey, no, if you're a Shopify employee and you actually do, you know, do a Shopify store and it gets bigger, you know, higher staff, or give it away or something. That's kind of interesting. So the reason I brought this article up was I'm just curious about about you guys. If you have Employees in your Amazon business, are you okay with them having like side hustles on the side, you know, like having their own Amazon business on the side, or do you want them a hundred percent focus on your business? All right, that's it for the news today. We had tons of be interesting to see what happens with some of these things that are that are ongoing. Bradley Sutton: Now, before we move on to our really important pro training Wanted to, you know, let you guys know, we're launching new platforms every week. You know, last week we launched on Twitter where we're doing a live video, so make sure to follow us on on Twitter, on twitch as well, and then one platform that a lot of customers want us to get on was rumble. You know it's. I didn't even know what rumble was. It's kind of like YouTube, and then I started watching rumble because on YouTube my sumo wrestling that I always watch Got canceled on YouTube, you know, for some, whatever reason. Now they're on rumble. So I'm like, okay, now I know rumble for sumo wrestling, but now instead of just sumo wrestling, you can know it for helium 10. So, guys, go to h10.me Forward slash rumble, make your own account if you don't have one h10.me forward slash rumble, and then hit follow here and then you'll be able to see we're uploading like old helium 10 podcast Episodes and training videos and things like that. Bradley Sutton: All right, guys, let's talk about keyword tracking. You know a lot of customers ask me what is that boost feature and why is it important. You know, like why? It's kind of annoying, I don't want to have to click it every 10 days, so I'm just gonna forget about it unless you tell me why it's important, all right. So for those who don't know, boost is the feature where, inside of keyword tracker, you hit this rocket ship Over here and then what it does is it starts checking keywords 24 hours a day, 24 times a day in different browsing scenarios. All right, so that's the key there, and so I'm gonna show you why helium pen has been doing this. Oh, I mean and this is, this is nothing new like 2017, when keyword tracker first came out 2018 as well, it had boost, all right, so so this is something that Manny coats, the founder of helium 10, is very important to him. But why is the question? Bradley Sutton: Well, why do we need to check different browsing scenarios? First of all, what is different browsing scenarios mean? Different browsing scenario is an edge browser, a chrome browser, edge in private mode, chrome incognito mode, safari browser, a mobile browser, a zip code in Minnesota, an address in Miami Florida. So it's like geo location, you know, like different addresses. It's also different browsing scenarios logged in, logged out. Basically, what happens is is Usually for like that. You know, the biggest selling products, a lot of their keyword ranks, stay kind of steady. You know, regardless of the browsing scenario, you know a lot of the keywords will stay pretty steady, but on the flip side, there might be just as many products and just as many keywords. Bradley Sutton: We're based on these browsing scenarios. You know whether I'm using a chrome browser, whether I'm signed in, whether I'm signed out, whether I'm using Safari, whether I'm in in Brooklyn, new York, whether I'm in San Diego, California, you might see different search results, right, and that's always been the case, like where people say, hey, how come you know my, my keyword tracker, my cerebral, looks different than what I'm looking at on Amazon? That's cause we're not using your Chrome browsers to actually go search for keyword ranks. You know, whatever your scene in keyword tracker is not necessarily the same as what the rank that we put, you know what browsing scenario that we chose. So I want to go in now and kind of like really illustrate just how much of an impact this potentially can have and why you should be using boosted, why you should care about different browsing scenarios. All right, let's hop right into it. Right now I am in an edge browser, right, Microsoft Edge. Like can't believe anybody uses that, huh. And I am here in the San Marcos zip code. All right, san Marcos is very near to me here in San Diego and I searched coffin shelf. Bradley Sutton: All right, now you take a look at the first line of search results. You see, you know three competitors. There's a makeup coffin shelf and then here's at one of our products. You know, one of our coffin bookshelf products is page one position for you know the second line of results, there's a bat shelf, three coffin shelves and a couple other coffin shelves and a makeup shelf. Now let's just compare. I am in the same exact browser, which is edge. All right, here I put a different address. I put my old address in Brooklyn, new York, one one, two, one Brooklyn Heights, right there. All right, this is the same search done at the same time. Now, if we look at the search results, the very first line, it looks like it's the same. But look at page one, position three, this is actually a completely different makeup shelf. That is here. All right, the other three products are actually the same. Like I said, you know a lot of times it is the same, but here this, this epic gifts coffin shelf, is completely different. Bradley Sutton: What has page one, position three from San Marcos, california, compared to Brooklyn, new York? As I scroll down to the next line of search results, it's even more different. You know, like like, this bat shelf is nowhere to be found. Here is that one. That's page one, position three, in one address, and now it's like page one, position 10 in another one. All right, so this is basically what we mean by, first of all, like the geo location or different address, different city. You know that you're putting in to Amazon. You could have different results in the same exact browser based on that and that, I think, kind of you know, makes sense to most people. Bradley Sutton: Now, one interesting thing it's not necessarily about the shipping time, all right. So, for example, remember that that that listing we said was different. The page one, position three, the coffin makeup shelf. Here, as you can see, for New York, it says it would be delivered on October 10th or October six is the fastest delivery. All right. Now that same exact product in San Diego. It's page one, like position 10,. You know it's way down the page. But look at the shipping time. It's either October 10th or October six, exactly the same. So the keyword rank here it wasn't that, oh, it can ship faster to New York. That's why it's going to be higher up there. Now, sometimes that might be the case, but it's. You can't always think that, oh, okay, this 100% ranking has to do with how fast Amazon can ship, because that's not the way that Amazon, uh, works across the board. All right. Bradley Sutton: Now next thing let's, this was edge signed in. Let's now go to edge in private, all right, so this is now like edge in Cognito mode, I guess, if you were, I did the same exact addresses. All right, again, San Marcos, California, and then I did Brooklyn, New York. Now this is like literally the same address. So the difference is one is an edge browser and one is edge in private mode. All right, take a look at the first line. There's like two here for San Marcos. There are two coffin make, those two coffin makeup shelves that were at different places. On the other, uh, listening, or the other, uh, browsing scenario. These are all in the top row. Now let's again compare it to the same exact city. Right here, this is San Marcos. Right, look at the top line of search results Completely different. Where's our, our product? Our double coffin shelf is nowhere to be found on on the same exact one. Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and scroll down. It's not in the second line of products, it's not in the third line of products. It's all the way in the fourth line of products. All right. And again, was this necessarily about shipping? No, look, look at our product. It says delivery on the 12th or seventh. All right, in the same scenario delivery on the 12th or seventh. But one is ranked page one position for and just because of the different browser we're using, the other one was ranked halfway down, uh, page one, all right. Now take a look at this. If I scroll down page one in the in private, I see this crazy ugly looking grotesque, grotesque here, uh, like knife holder. That's a skull, right, it's gross. Looking Now in Brooklyn on the in private, let's see if I see that. Yep, there, it is right, there, it's all the way down the page. Bradley Sutton: Now, guys, this was not anywhere on page one, one in the same exact address, just a different browser, that that product was nowhere to be found. So you guys see, this is what we mean by different browsing scenarios. It's not just about address, it's not just about shipping time. You could have different search results. All right Doesn't mean one is right, one is wrong, just different results. It is what, it is, all right. What are some other examples? Let's go ahead and switch to a Google Chrome. All right, now I'm in Google Chrome. Now here's the thing Some people, you know, might think that, oh well, is the different locations? Is it only about, like, different states, or maybe it's different cities, or no, it's not cities, it's zip code. No answer is none of the above Amazon. Bradley Sutton: Sometimes, even within the same zip code, will have different rankings in the same exact browser. All right, watch this. This is Google Chrome, right here? Right, I put in look at this 92078 up here as a address and then in this other window 92078, I actually put a specific, a different, specific address that the other one. All right, so two different addresses, same exact zip code, same exact browser. Let's take a look at the search results. All right, line one, it goes uh, the, the Amazon's choice, and two coffin makeup shelves and then one other coffin shelf. Let's take a look at the other address Only one coffin makeup shelf and then another product that wasn't even in the top of the page. Okay, this is the same exact zip code, guys. Just two different addresses, same exact browser and we are getting different results. If I go further on this page, I found another listing that was on one on page one. It wasn't even on page one on the other one. Bradley Sutton: Now, the other reason why you know it's not just about the address is, like you know, there's fulfilled by merchant. All right, so take a look over here. I just actually activate. This was a test product. I was doing some keyword testing on for episode 500 that's coming up on the podcast and it's a coffin bath tray, right, and I just threw it on here here I put Brooklyn, New York, all right, Brooklyn, New York address. And this is fulfilled by merchant. And I'm obviously in California. Amazon knows I'm in California, they know where I'm shipping from, I've got my shipping tiers and it's saying this is page one, position five, looks like five or six, right here, all right, and this is a fulfilled by merchant. Now, if I actually change this zip code, let me go ahead and change this zip code to let's go ahead and change it to something in San Marcos, really close to me, right, so that Amazon knows I, you know I'm shipping it, it's probably gonna deliver the next day, you know, because I'm shipping it right from here. Bradley Sutton: Let's take a look at the search results. You would think that it would go all the way up to page one, position like two or three. Let's take a look, nope, nope, it's in the exact same position and this time, page one, position six, Like. So again, if Amazon was like just strictly going on shipping time, you would see a little bit more consistency with the fluctuations. Now, that being said, the whole reason why we check different addresses and different browsing. Scenario again is that there is fluctuation, sometimes based on an address, sometimes based on a browser. And why is this important? All right, like why. Why should you care about this? Let me show you a great example of this. Bradley Sutton: Going back to that coffin shelf product all right, here is my keyword tracker that I had on boost sometime this summer, in May. All right Now, as you can see those of you watching on this look here like in the beginning of May, I had like pretty consistent rank. I had boost on and you could see it was only fluctuating my rank between like five and 10,. Right Now, look at what my impressions were for that day. Like the way you can see your impressions and page views is right on your insights dashboard of helium 10, your dashboard. You just set the dates. I set it right here to May six through May 13th and I scroll down here. I can see this at the parent level. I just wanna see all the impressions at the parent level and let's see what it was 1310 page views, 603 sessions. All right, it was doing pretty good here at the beginning of May. Bradley Sutton: Now, going back to that keyword, look what happened the second week of May. You guys see what's happening. All of a sudden now you start to see fluctuation in the different browsing scenarios. So you can see, instead of just going between five and 10, it's going back and forth between like five and like 15 and 16. Did this have an effect on the number of page views and impressions we were getting? Let's go to helium 10 insights dashboard. Bradley Sutton: Let's enter the next week 514 to 521, and take a look at the impressions it went from let me see, 1310 down to 881,. All right, it went down by a pretty big number here. All right, because of that keyword fluctuation. Let's go more on this keyword tracker graph. Take a look here the very following week. Look at some of this fluctuation at in one hour, in one browsing scenario it's position six, and the next hour it's position 25,. Even position what is this? 45, probably falling off of page one, all right. So what happened there? Let's go to the page views for that week 427, all right. So remember, just compare it. That first week where we were doing pretty good, it was pretty steady, your keyword ranks, right, you had 1310 page views. But because of this fluctuation on rank that probably was happening on multiple keywords it went down to 427. Bradley Sutton: Now, what is the reasons? Could it be inventory? Absolutely it could be inventory. Let's take a look. You guys probably didn't know this, but in helium 10, there's a tool called inventory levels inside of profits, and I can actually go to a certain date range. I'm gonna pick April to May here and see, hey, every day what was my inventory. And sure enough, here at the end of April I had some inbound inventory, all right, and at the beginning of May I had some pretty good numbers. So the number actually, you know, went up between the end of April and the beginning of May. And actually if you look I actually show the page impressions all the way back from the end of April. It was actually pretty bad when my inventory was low. And then as soon as my inventory got in stock, my impressions went up and my keyword ranking, you know, potentially got a little bit better. So absolutely your inventory levels plays a role. That's why we have this here. Bradley Sutton: But, as you recall, as May progressed, even though my inventory was not going down much at all, I was still at the mercy of Amazon. You know we call that like the search shuffle, where Amazon was not consistently keeping me at the top of page one. So now another thing that people ask about is inventory heat maps. All right, so you know, helium 10 has inventory heat maps and that allows you to kind of see where your inventory is stored at across the country. And like, for some strange reason, here in inventory heat maps I can see where Amazon is storing my products and it's only in two warehouses. All right, it's only in Kansas and Ohio. So right off the bat, that tells me like probably I need to send more inventory in. Bradley Sutton: But that being said, it doesn't always mean that your keyword ranks across the board are completely affected. Don't you remember that even when I was in the Brooklyn zip code and I was in San Diego, like, I was still ranking at the top of page one about? So what I did? I was just out of curiosity. I'm like if Amazon only awarded keyword rank based on where my you know product is being stored, well, let me go ahead and pick an address very close to this place where they has most of my inventory. So let's take a look at Kansas, all right. So here I picked a zip code and the address right here in Kansas, and if you look, I mean you would think, hey, my coffin shelf should be at the top of page one. It's not in the first line, not here at the sec, or it is here at the second line, all right. So here it's, page one, position five, all right. So not too bad. Bradley Sutton: But look at the shipping time, guys. It says Tuesday October 10th, friday October 6th. Does that sound familiar? Do you remember how it was when I was in San Diego, california fastest delivery October 10th or, I'm sorry, regular delivery October 10th, fastest delivery October 6th, the same exact shipping time, even though it has to go cross country just to get to me, all right. What about the other address which was Ohio, remember? So I put a Cleveland zip code in here. All right, not in the first line, not here in the second line, not in the? Oh, it is in the third line. But here, even though the inventory is stored right, like literally next door to this address that I picked, it is actually showing a later shipping time. It's saying the fastest delivery is Monday, october 9th for this. And it also has this, you know, a little bit toward down, towards the page. Bradley Sutton: So you know, again, part of the moral of the story is nobody, we, none of us know. Amazon probably doesn't even know the ins and outs of the Amazon algorithm. It's obviously, first of all, not consistent. All right, it's not based on one thing, you know. It's not just all hey, on this browser, you're always going to see these results. If you're signed in, you're always going to see this results. If you're in this address, you're always going to see these results. If you have inventory close by to a warehouse, you're always going to have this. That's not the way, unfortunately, as of now that Amazon works. Bradley Sutton: But at the same time, there's a reason why helium 10 made all these tools I just went in keyword tracker with boost, inventory levels, history, inventory heat maps is because you need visibility into what's going on, so you're not scratching your head wondering what you can do or why your your page views are gone, have gone down, or why your page views have gone up. You know, conversely. So again, the takeaways here, guys, is number one turn boost on on your main keywords, keep it on, all right. Go into your dashboard and set up the insights where you'll get an alert if, if your keyword, uh, if your keyword drops in in keyword rank, you know, uh, more than four times in a row. All right, uh, set up an alert for if your page impressions go down. You like that that actually we have. This product is underperforming insight on insights dashboard. It'll let you know. Hey, your page views are down by 30% or whatever. All right, and that should trigger you to like. Bradley Sutton: All right, let me go check my keyword ranks. Which keyword is resulting in this? Is Amazon like all of a sudden shuffling me around? Uh, take a look at your inventory levels. Do you need to send more inventory in? Is Amazon distributing your inventory? Like to me? They're not distributing my inventory across the board, but it doesn't look like it's affecting me too much. On keyword ranks, my keyword ranks are pretty uh stable at the top of page one across the board. So even though you don't have too much control over what's going to go on, as far as the search shuffle goes, it's important you understand what is happening out there so that you know you can take action uh in your account. So I hope this uh special training deep dive here uh was able to help you and, uh, you know, let me know in the comments below if you guys have any questions and we'll see you guys in the next episode.

Stay up to date on news related to the furniture industry! In this episode, we cover:(00:59): "Fall Pre-Holiday Promotions: Amazon, Walmart, and Target's Big Deals and Discounts"(02:23): "Highlights from the Successful C I F F Shanghai 2023: A Comprehensive Platform for the Furniture Industry"(03:48): Expanding Arhaus: Embracing Omnichannel Strategies for Future Growth(05:38): "The Power of AI in the Home Furnishings Sector: Embracing Innovation for Competitive Success"(08:10): "Adapting to Changing Retail Landscape: Selective Buying and Strategic Adjustments in the Furniture Market"(10:25): "The Struggles and Exits of Home Furnishings Retailers in a Challenging Market"(12:57): Analyzing Housing Trends: Decreased Housing Starts and Building Permits, Rise in Completions(14:52): "Improving Health of Logistics Industry: Transportation Prices Decline, Inventory Levels Rise"

In this podcast episode, Kiri delves into the unique aspects of Walmart's marketplace and why simply copying and pasting content from Amazon won't yield meaningful results.  She explores Walmart's Listing Content score and its impact on visibility, sales, and conversion. Learn why increasing the quality score from 70% to 90% can lead to a 13% increase in conversion and how to optimize your listing content for maximum success on Walmart. Kiri also discusses the differences in the content breakdown between Walmart and Amazon, along with the recent changes implemented by Walmart. Tune in as we unravel the intricacies of the Walmart algorithm and why it's worth considering Walmart.com as a channel for ecommerce growth. Whether you're a brand looking to expand your online presence or a seller seeking a comprehensive understanding of the Walmart marketplace, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you achieve your goals. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into the fascinating world of Walmart and its unique approach to ecommerce. In today's episode, Kiri talks about: Walmart vs. Amazon - the importance of understanding the differences for ecommerce growth  Walmart's Listing Content Score and Quality Score Walmart's Content Optimization and Algorithm Optimizing Content and Ad Strategy Walmart's Attractiveness for Ecommerce Growth Video Content on Walmart.com Importance of Establishing a Presence on Amazon Walmart's Third-Party Marketplace and Attribution Content Quality Score and its Components Obtaining Product Reviews Impact of Quality Score on Conversion Rate and Sales Importance of a High-Quality Score on Walmart Tips for Optimizing Content on Walmart

I'm old enough to remember a book from over 30 years ago called, The Late Shift, a chronicling of the wars between David Letterman, Jay Leno, NBC, and who would eventually end up with the Tonight Show Crown. Our featured book this week reminds of that book in many ways. The difference, however is the […] The post 492: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets with Jason Del Rey first appeared on Read to Lead Podcast.

This episode of the RETHINK Retail Podcast was recorded live at eTail East on August 22, 2023. Meet Jason Del Rey, an established business journalist who has spent the better part of the last decade keeping us hooked, expounding the intricate workings of the retail industry. His inherent interest in entrepreneurship led him to pay special attention to two mammoth forces in retail: Walmart and Amazon. Over the years, Jason has analyzed the two retailers' business models, tracking their growth, and predicting their future strategies. As evidenced in his new book 'Winner Sells All', Jason's keen understanding of the Amazon-Walmart saga carries a tangible depth few can rival. Join RETHINK Retail CCO Kirat Anand as he and Jason discuss Amazon and Walmart's ongoing competition as they vie for dominance in the industry, revealing the surprising missed opportunities, contrasting strategies, and the future battle for the younger consumer's loyalty. The conversation covers Walmart's early dismissal of e-commerce and missed opportunities, as well as Amazon's challenges in the consumer packaged goods sector. Del Rey also touches on the impact of wage increases and inflation on both companies and the issue of product shrinkage in Amazon's marketplace. Nominate the next Global Retail Leader: rethink.industries/global-retail-leaders/#nominate If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by subscribing to our channel and giving us a 5 star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! - - - - - - Hosted by Kirat Anand Produced by Gabriella Bock

Sea 3 Ep 22 Jason Del Rey - New Book, “Winner Sells All, Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets!”  8/17/2023 Jason Del Rey joins the program to talk about his new book, “Winner Sells All, Amazon, Walmart, and the battle for our Wallets.” This interview is like no other as we talk about the characters, the incredible drama, conflict and ups and downs of this insane 20+year fight between the two retail giants. Jason tells some of his favorite stories and some of his most surprising discoveries while doing the reporting for this book. A remarkable Mark Lore story you won't believe along with so many more. For the book, Jason spent more time than most with CEO of Walmart Doug McMillon. Walmart actually had a jump on Ecommerce before Amazon, so why did they fall so far behind? Scott Ohsman,Summer Jubelirer and Hayley Brucker talk to Jason about this thrilling book that reads like a movie or Succession season, but is all true stories. Always Off Brand is Ecommerce Simplified, Learn & Laugh!    QUICKFIRE Info:   Website: https://www.quickfirenow.com/ Email the Show: info@quickfirenow.com  Talk to us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quickfireproductions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quickfire__/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@quickfiremarketing LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/quickfire-productions-llc/about/ Guest: Jason Del Rey  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondelrey/ Amazon Link to buy Book: https://www.amazon.com/Winner-Sells-All-Walmart-Wallets/dp/0063076322 HOSTS: Summer Jubelirer has been in digital commerce and marketing for over 16 years. After spending many years working for digital and ecommerce agencies working with multi-million dollar brands and running teams of Account Managers, she is now the Amazon Manager at OLLY PBC.   LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/summerjubelirer/   Scott Ohsman has been working with brands for over 28 years in retail, online and has launched over 200 brands on Amazon. Owning his own sales and marketing agency in the Pacific NW, is now VP of Digital Commerce for Quickfire LLC. Scott has been a featured speaker at national trade shows and has developed distribution strategies for many top brands. LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-ohsman-861196a6/   Hayley Brucker has been working in retail and with Amazon for years. She is currently a Brand Manager at Channel Key LLC. Hayley has extensive experience in digital advertising, both seller and vendor central on Amazon. Hayley is based out of North Carolina and has worked in multiple product categories and has also worked on the brand side and started with Nordstrom on the retail floor.  LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-brucker-1945bb229/   Huge thanks to Cytrus our show theme music “Office Party” available wherever you get your music. Check them out here: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cytrusmusic Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cytrusmusic/ Twitter https://twitter.com/cytrusmusic SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6VrNLN6Thj1iUMsiL4Yt5q?si=MeRsjqYfQiafl0f021kHwg APPLE MUSIC https://music.apple.com/us/artist/cytrus/1462321449   “Always Off Brand” is part of the Quickfire Podcast Network and produced by Quickfire LLC.  

In this episode Shannan interviews Nikki as she talks about how the effects of being sexually abused as a child later effected her and how it trickled into her adult years. Through her trauma, Nikki has now written six books, is an entrepreneur and a minister. Her story is of triumph over trauma, a must listen to episode!  Nikki's Information: My Name is Nikki Morton Moore and I am Minister,  Author,  talk show/Radio Host  of The Come Back  which airs every 3rd Monday of the month at 7pm Foxtrapradio.com  then click on the list en button. I have lived in Virginia all my life. I'm the mother of 2 sons .    For  speaking engagements I can be contacted  via email or cell phone Email nickj4568@gmail.com  Please put in subject line speaking engagement  Phone  number  571 477-7279 Leave a message and someone will get back to you.    My books can be purchased at my publisher website: Lulu.com/spotlight/Nmoore89  or the following  Amazon  Walmart online  Barns & Noble online    You can find my business  page on FB and please follow  Nikki j books and more    I'm Nikki Morton on FB Instagram  moore4568    CONNECT WITH ME: Website Facebook IG Email- info@shannanmondor.com   When you have faith in yourself you will have fulfilment in all areas of your life! See you next week and blessing to all!!!     

Anyone who has spent any time following the ecommerce industry and particularly Amazon and Walmart is familiar with the journalism of Jason Del Rey, who spent a decade at Recode documenting the transformation of retail, and also through his podcast Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon. He has now come out with a deeply researched and incisive book entitled Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets, and he joined the podcast to share some insights of this most consequential era in retail, and where this clash of the titans might go from here.

Are you looking to sell books on Amazon or Walmart? Do you want to gain some tips for selling across ecommerce platforms? In this clip we talk about sourcing books to sell online. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jessica-hill00/support

Business journalist Jason Del Rey looks at the rise of Amazon and Walmart and their economic impact on the U.S. and the world. He's interviewed by Insider chief tech correspondent Eugene Kim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business journalist Jason Del Rey looks at the rise of Amazon and Walmart and their economic impact on the U.S. and the world. He's interviewed by Insider chief tech correspondent Eugene Kim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's podcast, Kiri is joined by Jason Del Rey, a veteran business journalist, who presents an engaging exploration of the intense Amazon/Walmart rivalry and Walmart's journey of reinvention over the past decade in his latest book, "Winner Sells All."  With extensive experience covering the e-commerce industry and conducting interviews with brands and suppliers, Jason delves into topics such as the Innovator's Dilemma, the changing dynamics of Walmart+ and Amazon Prime, the challenges of building in-house brands, the impact of digital change instigated by Marc Lore at Walmart, Amazon's struggles in physical retail, and the possibility of Amazon facing antitrust actions.  For those eager to grab the book and follow Jason's work,  his latest book, "Winner Sells All.", is now available in bookstores. Make sure you tune in to find out more!   

Jason Del Rey joins Chris and Anne to discuss his new book, Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart And The Battle For Our Wallets.

EP304 - ShopTalk Recap  ShopTalk 2023 took place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas March 26 – March 29th, and seems fully back to pre-pandemic levels. Over 10,000 attendees, 600 exhibitors, and 50,000 one on one meetings, make ShopTalk the premiere digital commerce event in the US. In this episode we recap everything you may have missed if you couldn't make it to Las Vegas. We also briefly discuss e-commerce in Brazil, around Jason's recent trip to São Paulo. Key Themes At ShopTalk this year: Retail Media Networks Social Commerce and Shoppable Video Artificial Intelligence Retailers Becoming Plaforms Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 304 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, April 6th 2023. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 304 being recorded on Thursday April 6th 2023 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey JC and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason you've been burning up the frequent flyer miles I was have all your trips been. Jason: [0:48] I have I just I did a double header I was just in Las Vegas for shoptalk, and then sadly I had to cut out of shoptalk a little early and head down South America to meet with a bunch of pupusas clients I don't I'm not sure I said the portal right there pupusas clients in Brazil so I got two visits Apollo for my second time. Scot: [1:10] People say I don't know you could be in the manual or how to how to pronounce your company's name. Jason: [1:20] But it's got you sound more like relaxed and laid-back than you usually do why is that. Scot: [1:26] Yeah I am coming to you live from my spring break come down here at the North Carolina coast J tone and apologize I'm not up to my usual audio quality I know that's going to drive you crazy but it's been three hundred four episodes we can have a low Fidelity one for me. Jason: [1:42] Low Fidelity Scott is still better than high-fidelity. Scot: [1:44] No thank you I appreciate that. Jason: [1:47] Yeah and is it nice down there. Scot: [1:49] It is we're having good weather it's nice and sunny not its usual heat so it's kind of a 78 but it's nice it's got fun to walk in the beach when it's not blazing hot. Jason: [2:00] Yeah I was going to say I'll take that. Scot: [2:01] Yeah probably better than Chicago her have to say. Jason: [2:05] Yeah it has just in the last couple days warmed up we hit 70 yesterday and then it did back down to 50 today but I'm heading out on spring break this weekend as well so I'm looking forward to some warmer weather also. Scot: [2:18] Yeah you're going to a more exotic location I'm jealous. Jason: [2:22] Yeah yeah we're a family and I are going to the Caribbean so that it is purportedly very warm there so just desperately trying to get all the last stuff done here so that we can go without any guilt. Scot: [2:35] Poop including publishing a podcast I love it your dedication is admirable. Jason: [2:38] That is priority number one I can't we can't leave without all our listeners that let me hear it at shoptalk that we haven't been publishing quite as frequently as they'd like. Scot: [2:48] Yeah it's a between all the things you have going on it's been a little harder this year but we'll we're getting this one in the can before we jump into the e-commerce have you been tracking the Mandalorian. Jason: [3:00] You know I have it's another great season I feel like we're treated to like like you know Premiere movie Caliber content every week now it's amazing. Scot: [3:12] Yeah I'm really enjoying no spoilers part of our policy that I'm enjoying the storyline and it's kind of a fun adventure to see we're going to take this the filoni verse is pretty interesting and enjoyable because they call it. Jason: [3:25] Indeed did you get fooled by any April Fool's jokes. Scot: [3:30] I didn't know it was on a weekend this time so. Yeah I feel like usually at work is when I get get kind of caught up in those things but in the ones I saw a companies do were just like so outrageously silly. A lot of them when you're in a recessionary period of doing layoffs the stuff that kind of it's hard to hard to be super jovial so a lot of them were either kind of hit flat or we're just going like not not really rocket industry. Jason: [3:57] Yeah. I I made a LinkedIn post asking why it seems like all these companies are only like really Innovative one day a year with cool product releases. I thought that would be a like pretty transparent comment and I got like 20 comments back talking about why companies aren't Innovative anymore. Mike I was kind of referencing all the the fake April Fool's products I watched a product in AI based tool that puts your name on the exclusion list when you buy a product so you get to stop seeing ads for it. Scot: [4:32] I thought is that real or that was April Fool joke. Jason: [4:35] There was an April Fool's joke but the feedback I got is very clear that if someone does want to build that, um they could definitely make some money I thought it was funny because it's a feature built into every advertising platform there's nothing stopping anyone from doing it that's why I thought it was funny. But apparently like taking the email address of all the people you sell something too and uploading it to a server via an API is too hard. Scot: [5:05] Well the problem is I only you know I'm okay with you pitching the other products it's just not the one I just thought so so it seems like the way you pitched it was much broader based like my whole I would never hear from you again. Jason: [5:19] Yeah maybe I I mean I wrote it on a plane on the way home from Brazil so we've. But you will be happy to know that I use mid journey to create a logo for the new. Scot: [5:32] Uncle yeah I've been really enjoying the journey it's been a lot. Jason: [5:35] I know you're getting good at it you've uploaded some pretty cool images. Scot: [5:39] Yeah I'm the king of anything to do with penguins can have a lot of. Jason: [5:41] I know you've got some like penguins lounging on the beach. Scot: [5:45] I'm a very specific command engineer for anything to do with penguins. Jason: [5:49] Yet another I'm going to go vote for you on LinkedIn for that skill. Scot: [5:55] My long hair looks kills the let's talk about your Brazil trip let's do that first because shoptalk I wasn't able to make it this year and I want to get kind of meaty on some of that stuff because there's a lot of really good good topics that tell us about Brazil. Jason: [6:11] Yeah so short trip to Brazil for those that aren't familiar with that market it's pretty interesting it's the largest market in Latin America people talk about latam all the time but the. The Dynamics in each country are wildly different and of course they speak a completely different language in Brazil than they do in the rest of Latin America so like. [6:32] It tends to be pretty variable country to Country, the Retail Landscape in Brazil isn't super Dynamic are interesting there's some good retailers but there's nothing that would work. [6:44] Super exciting a revolutionary to anyone that's used to shopping in the US but e-commerce is a pretty interesting Battle Ground Amazon is not the incumbent there's a Marketplace you know well Mercado Libre that, really focuses on Latin America. They're by far the largest Marketplace in Latin America and I think they're still bigger than Amazon but Amazon came to Brazil late and and people are speculating that they would have no chance that there's, all these laws that are unfriendly to expats and mercado Libre had a local presence in Brazil and all this stuff, and my sense is both companies are doing really well and continuing to thrive. E-commerce is growing similar to the US like they tend to be 10 to 15% a year growth for ecommons 4% for retail and both Mercado Libre and Amazon which are by far the two biggest players in Brazil are both growing, much faster than that industry average so. I haven't been there for years ago and back now four years ago people are like Amazon's the new guy and we don't think they'll make it and I think, like in most other markets what they've learned is that if Amazon is really serious about your Market there they're definitely going to be able to win over Shoppers and they, open the ton of infrastructure and they seem to be a credible competitor but it's kind of fun to be in a market where there's two a gentleman. Competitors. Scot: [8:13] Yeah and then did you go to anywhere else in South America just presume. Jason: [8:19] Saturday just Brazil and just how Paulo which is biggest city and in Latin America like 22 million, people in the metro area the digital stuff that was fun to me in Brazil so you know I like to talk about these Chinese companies that are doing really well in the US Xi'an, and she and is doing a bunch of experiments in Brazil that they're not doing anywhere else so in most of the country Shion is a direct-to-consumer model where they have deals with a bunch of factories, and they they sell direct to Consumer the in Brazil there a marketplace with three-piece hours. [8:54] And so that's their first pilot for 3p, and I don't know if it's related to this or not but there's a long time SoftBank exact who led like a hundred million dollar investment in Chien who's based in Latin America and just took a job as like. The head of Sheehan and Latin America and so it seems like they they definitely have a vested interest in the market. So it's kind of interesting to see how well she ends doing there like they are here and then you know Tim ooh is only a three-month-old company it's a pen duo duo, company that has done really well here in the US with app downloads and they did the Super Bowl ads and very similarly they are making a huge, advertising investment in Brazil and getting a lot of traction so that was interesting all of Latin America is having an inflation problem right now and it's kind of interesting Brazil has had this horrible inflation problem for a long time and so there's almost a way in which. [9:53] Brazil is. Doing economy is doing better than a lot of other Latin America economies because they are today already felt the pain of the like truly massive inflation that like makes our inflation seems silly. So that was interesting and then the to me the most geeky coolest thing of all although controversial is during the pandemic, the Brazilian government launched a government-sponsored instant payment system so I got. A digital wallet but the distinction between instant payments and digital wallets digital wallets can hold like credit cards and traditional forms of payment instant payment is kind of like. [10:33] You know do direct withdrawal from transfers from One bank to another, um and so they launched this National digital instant payment system called pics and so if you're a merchant you can accept pics and you don't have to pay any credit card interchange fees, you get your money instantly from the consumer there's all the the you know typical anti-fraud and consumer protection stuff in it and it launched in the middle of the pandemic in 2020 and today it's, used by seventy percent of the Brazilian population so I have to be honest like there's. In one sense a little jealous because I believe there's a lot of digital experiences that get held back in the US because it's such a pain in the neck to pay for stuff. Scot: [11:18] Yeah for a while most of Latin America with Zod and always had it explained to me that it was kind of like, they like to pass cash because the inflation problem they like to keep cash for than in the bank they don't trust the banking system a lot of times so there's this pic thing replacing that that Zod is the most popular payment mechanism. Jason: [11:40] Yeah it definitely has online there still is some cod4 sure it depends on the delivery window of the goods Mercado Libre an Amazon deliver like unsurprisingly fast, but like so you earned order furniture from magazine luiza and it's going to get delivered two weeks from now like the. You want to settle up at point of delivery not at point of order because of that that currency fluctuation or but at least you did. So yeah I don't know the exact breakdown but it just. It's interesting to have this like super ubiquitous payment and part of me and I believe the last time I was in Brazil this that didn't exist yet, and there wasn't a lot of Regulation so everybody and their brother was launching a digital payment method and they were all like a bunch of them were like fraudulent and sketchy and like I went down there and met like a client that was like a chocolatier that made chocolate, and they're like and we have our own digital wallet you're just like why does this country need 400 digital wallets and so part of me imagines that this pic system was sort of. In response to the private sector running amok. Scot: [12:55] Ankle and then how was the flight there and back there in ours there in our time zone right but you but it's kind of a long flight they're in. Jason: [13:06] They're so sad Paulo is a slightly more East so for me from Chicago it's two hours ahead for you they'd be one hour ahead of you. The flight from Chicago would be uneventful it's about a 10 hour direct flight but you can't get there from Las Vegas so I had to go as Vegas. To Dulles which is the wrong direction and then and then down and I had a tight connection I was super nervous, everything went went perfectly I'm sitting in my comfortable seat on the plane for the last leg of the flight down there and I say to myself. All green lights and right then the engine conked out on our plate. Went back to the gate so at the airport for like 5 hours and yeah it ended up being a 24-hour traveled. Scot: [13:56] I hate this map can be recovered. Jason: [13:59] But lucky fresh Jason and exhausted Jason aren't all that different. Scot: [14:03] Just kind of pull the string and you just start talking. Jason: [14:07] Exactly and it is definitely true that my travel muscles have atrophied so like I don't know just not quite as routine as it used to be for me. Scot: [14:21] Yeah give me a rundown of shoptalk what was all the good good sessions there. Jason: [14:27] Yeah well so high level this was the shoptalk the definitely felt like back to normal hundred percent like so there were over 10,000 people there which I think was the attendance of 29. 19 if I'm remembering right. It felt super vibrant and busy and you know you couldn't get a Starbucks because there was a super long line for the first time that I remember you couldn't get a hotel room at the show Hotel. And so a ton of people were having to stay off site which is a little bit of a bummer. The thing that has grown a ton is you know shoptalk offers this Meetup service. You know where it's kind of like Tinder B2B Tinder right like you give a list of. Potential customers you want to meet and they give a list of vendors they want to meet and if you both swipe right like they booked a meeting so shoptalk booked 50,000 meetings, for this event and you can you can go online and get you know Google pictures of the meeting space. It's way bigger than the exhibit space so I give it was a. Pretty interesting Dynamic and people felt like because it was double opt-in that the quality of the meetings was pretty good. Scot: [15:43] Yeah and that's where this is popular in Europe for a while and then most you should have never did it but it sounds like we're moving to that where as a retailer if you agree to X number of meetings they'll pay for your Compu of flight the ticket to the show in a room is it kind of how it works. Jason: [16:01] Yeah and they still have that so yes if you agree to a number of meetings you get comp to the show, I'm not sure about if they comp your hotel room or not I don't remember but um they used to kind of aggressively sell these meetings to vendors and back then Menders were like the meetings are Hidden Mist because you get a lot of kind of. Major people that were just using the meetings as a way to fund their trip and that weren't really interested in the products. My sense is that they they stopped doing that heavy cell and they now make the meetings free if both people opt-in. You don't you can be a vendor and get as many meetings as you want with people that that agree to see you and the only people that are required to take a meaning are these retailers that get their trip. Um but they still get to pick from amongst the people that want to meet with them so, it sounds like a little more voluntary and it sounds like it's working better and the inside trade show baseball, the guy that founded this show and sold it Anil apparently started a company to write the software to manage all these meetings and he sells it as a service and apparently, that's another business that's taken off for an eel that a bunch of shows are now using this this be to be tender software. Scot: [17:20] Like I never misses an angle gotta respect that. Jason: [17:22] Yeah I do. Scot: [17:24] Always gotta hustle goner. Jason: [17:26] I do I you know normally I'm anti serial entrepreneurs but you know occasionally someone wins me over. So that was kind of the vibe felt back lots of people were super kind and came up and, told me how much they appreciate the show and how much they regret that you weren't there there are some people that feel a little abandoned that feel like, you have your new get spiffy family better than you of your old e-commerce. Scot: [18:00] They can visit with us every so often on the podcast. Jason: [18:04] Exactly, so that was kind of the vibe and then you know as per usual they had bunch of Keynotes they had a bunch of track content, they had a big vibrant trade show booth and this this meeting space. And I kind of divided all the themes of the show into four big themes and the first thing I should tell you is, the first day of the show after about three key notes I made a tweet that like, the shop Todd drinking game this year is retail media networks and generative AI that you have to drink every time each one of those things came up and it got like. Five thousand retweets so it seems like there is pretty violent, agreement on those two themes so as it turned out those were two of the big themes was retail media networks and generative Ai and then the other two, that I like to talk about our kind of the social commerce video Commerce. Progression and then this last one that we'll talk about at the end called platforms. [19:11] So the first one retail media networks it's pretty interesting like everybody is talking about this stuff, there are now like we're tracking over 40 retailers that have launched a retail media Network so there's there's a huge fragmentation problem for brands that want to or need to advertise on these things, because all 40 of them have. Different infrastructures and tools and most notably they have completely different metrics and success criteria so there's no way to I. Apples to Apples how well your investment in any of these. These networks is working but there are a ton of sessions from the brand side talking about you know if and how you should be playing on retail networks there were a ton of sessions including one I did from the retailer side talking about how you should think about, launching a retail Network and use it there are a bunch of. The kind of Legacy vendors that have been known for these retail media networks like citrus add which is owned by my parent company and then pretty oh but there were also, 37 startups that were you know launching new businesses to help either retailers, manager retail media Network or Brands advertised on a retail media Network so. [20:30] Ton of taka talking about it I did a session that was interesting at least to me that was slightly broader than just retail media networks it what I was asked to talk about all the ways retailers could monetize data. Um and I had with me Nadine AA Julie jannetty who's the VP of, marketing for Vitamin Shoppe, and so I kind of put together this framework for my session hey there's three ways retailers can make money on data they can sell their data they can rent their data and they could use their data and, for sale I talked about all these examples like Walmart illuminate or Amazon premium analytics or Kroger's data, licensing arm or even selling data to iri for use we talked about how you could use that data in like personalization engines and generative AI engines and in targeted marketing campaigns, but the rent version was all about how you could use that data to launch and improve a retail media. [21:34] And the reason I call that renting is increasingly the big Trend in the successful retail media networks is, selling ads that don't appear on your own website so either off-site digitally so, I would buy retail media Network ad from Walmart that appears on Facebook and the reason I would do that is because Walmart has better first-party data than I do since I can't use a local look-alike audience from Facebook anymore to build the exact audience I want Walmart can so if I pay them to run an ad for me they can Target that add much better than I can and so the biggest retail media networks are, getting a lot of traction with these sort of off-site AD units, and then the other big thing that everyone is doing is trying to figure out how to move more of these ad units into the store and most retailers still get more eyeballs in more more footfalls in the store and then they do on their website and so they're able to monetize the store space. That's really interesting and increasingly these retailers are offering these clean rooms where you can kind of bring your data and they bring their data and you can you can kind of rent some customer Insight by, by in an anonymous way matching your data up with the retailers to get more insight about what your customers are doing. Scot: [22:57] Yeah and this is maybe just back up for listeners this is all really out of the IDF a and a TT changes right so, so Apple till third-party tracking and then Google followed and all this first-party data is now worth its kind of gold dust because they have the best clothes look data, is that a fair characterization why this is now a thing. Jason: [23:19] It is I would say it's a it's a conflation of two things one of them is that that the first party data from the Facebook's and Google's got depreciated by by these more stringent privacy restrictions but then the second thing that happened is grocery e-commerce more than doubled and in Inconvenient Truth of grocery e-commerce is that it's wildly unprofitable so there's all of this, margin pressure on retailers specifically in grocery and so if you look at the retail media networks that are doing the best it's Amazon Walmart Kroger you know that are the three biggest grocers in the US. Scot: [24:00] And then what is if a brand wants to be on like 10 of the 40 of these how do they do that it's just they just hire an agency to manage it all are there some tools developed coming along they'll do. Jason: [24:12] So you could do it in-house every one of these networks offer some sort of tool at the moment these are all pretty rudimentary so if you compare the the, instrumentation for these things too like the instrumentation for buying an ad on Google it's like it's several Generations behind but, in most cases it requires human intervention so in most of these these networks like you're literally calling a sales guy to place an ad for you which is. [24:42] Pretty archaic right like obviously the brands that want to do this themselves want to do it in a more automated way and so that this is where Amazon's the most ahead of anyone else and you know as you can imagine the bigger. Companies have little better instrumentation than the than the you know kind of mid-tier retailers are in are certainly then any independent retailer. So the instrumentation is pretty rudimentary you can use an agency like like mine or many of our good competitors to do this for you I would say the trend while a lot of people use us right now, in the long run they want to be able to do this themselves and not pay a middleman to do it for them so they're they're all putting pressure on the retailers to offer better tools and then there are third-party tools, um that try to learn the, the different data vulgarities and metrics from each of these platforms and kind of be a universal translator and I described many of these as like the channel advisor of retail media Networks and I actually think Channel advisor may offer a product in this space now too but like if you. [25:59] Longtime friend of the show Melissa from Pat view as a tool that that, is it is getting a lot of traction in this space there's some traditional ad automation tools like kin shoe and what's now sky, um [26:17] Do all this stuff so there's a lot of competition for tools the tools are replacing a lot of inherent deficiencies in the in the media networks at the. Scot: [26:28] Yeah yeah I like this one too many problem so I wouldn't be surprised of Channel those are spoken in there and then if you did it for Amazon like most of the verdict had done you know then it's easy to add multiples. Jason: [26:41] Yeah and you know everybody started with Amazon and they're now starting to expand and so. You know there's a lot of like coaching for people at different levels of maturity about all this stuff there were a bunch of retailers that came on and give case studies about how successful they've been, because these things are all pretty small they're growing really fast so like Ulta, I gave a presentation and they talked about how their Regional media networks growing at 40% Macy's talked about how you know in this was kind of a sales pitch but like, um how you know brands that bought their Premier retail media ads units like had 25% better sell-through than, then brands that that did not so talking about the efficacy. The tracking and measurement of all these ads is super dubious right now by the way Uber did a presentation and I don't know if you've noticed this an Uber lately but there they are weaning heavily into these ads as a new, monetization Channel I feel like their way over the top like I keep. You know I'm trying to book a flight to a ride to the airport and I've got a click through I you know click around eight ads too. [27:55] To do that which is somewhat annoying. So there's a lot of positive momentum and everyone talking about this is the Panacea and this the way to make money to more nuanced interesting conversations a lot of people are like. Is this new like when you're talking about retail media networks moving in store like isn't that a hundred year old practice called Co-op advertising that like every retailers, been doing I get in many ways this feels like kind of the digitization of a long-standing practice at retail and then you get into all these interesting questions. [28:28] Where's the money coming from that's going into these ads is it a zero-sum game is it like are they taking dollars from their trade budget that used to go to a store circular and buying an ad with it or is this marketing money that used to be going to Facebook and buying an ad with it, all of those conversations came up and then for the first time because this has been the most hype thing in my world for. [28:50] I don't know two years 18 months for the first time you're starting to hear the stories that and it doesn't always work out right that like. It's a lot harder to do than it sounds like when you just see a PowerPoint presentation from a vendor that's trying to get you to buy their tool. And you know a bunch of these guys are kind of stumbling like the the amount of eyeballs you have to sell like drop off really fast after you get pissed Amazon and Walmart, um and so you know it the fragmentation problem becomes a real problem for. For targeting and selling ads and we've seen at least one one retailer Gap actually have to turn off the retail media Network and kind of, give up and it makes perfect sense that they like, wouldn't be successful because at the moment all the advertisers on these networks are what we would call endemic advertisers their people that are selling stuff through the retailer and so you know probably have some, additional interest in having an add-on that retailers properties, there are no insurance companies are car companies buying ads on any of these platforms and if you think about it what who the Gap does not have is any endemic advertisers right like they sell all their own stuff so. They just had a hard time I think selling enough adieu. Scot: [30:08] Young sir wall she loves it because it's just pure margin was so much easier to sell a margin add than a product. Jason: [30:14] I have a whole deck of CFO quotes talking about how like this is the greatest business I've ever seen in my 30 year career as a retailer, because they're like there's 75 percent gross margin businesses for a bunch of companies that are used to eight percent gross margin businesses. Scot: [30:30] Yeah yet Game Changer it doesn't have to be it could be eight percent of Revenue and it'll drive likes it. Jason: [30:35] No that's that's why I keep talking about like you know a bunch of these guys are like uber just announced that they're near a billion dollars in. Ads you know that's I don't know that could be a hundred billion dollars in gmv equivalent or 50 billion dollars in gmv equivalent for Gruber. Scot: [30:54] Yeah they're actually they were one super annoying because I feel like there's a misalignment there because, they'll say you're right is 3 minutes away and I'll show you an ad and then suddenly will be like 12 minutes away you're like wait a minute and then they yeah they almost intended to make you wait for the ride while. Jason: [31:11] You're monetizing your bad service. Scot: [31:14] Yeah yeah that one feels like that's kind of bad biopsy. Jason: [31:18] Yeah and there's a controversy with all these things like you can, you know what's the right level of this stuff to put in right like a little bit of advertising there's an argument that it's a customer amenity and helps a customer but but too much is super annoying right and in general, why you know people start to start by sprinkling a little bit on this and it's not so objectionable but once they get addicted to it you know the first organic result on Amazon is now you know often well below the fold because everything above the folds been monitoring. Scot: [31:48] Yeah. Jason: [31:50] So that was the thing on retail media networks happily my company has like 50 subject matter experts in that that no more than me so I don't end up having to talk about that as much as I used to, which I'm frankly grateful for because I don't I don't like that business that much it's Louise interesting part of our whole Space to me, but the next big Trend was the whole evolution of social commerce and I'm kind of lumping shoppable video into social commerce so there were a bunch of platforms that gave Keynotes, Bill ready is the CEO of Pinterest he gave a keynote and he had kind of an interesting metaphor he's like you know for a long time, Pinterest has been kind of like the digital equivalent of window shopping except you are only window shopping at night when all the stores were closed and you weren't allowed to buy anything, and he's like you know the big goal for Pinterest this year is to open up all those stores and let you buy the stuff that you're interested in right and he made. Yes um funny arguments you know there's there's a lot of objectionable stuff on a lot of these social media networks and negative sentiment and all this stuff and because. [33:01] Pinterest is mostly product-centric it kind of side steps a lot of those. Those controversies and so you know he talks about it is a much more brand safe platform than a lot of other social networks they launched a second product last year called shuffles which is kind of a. A gen Z version of Pinterest that's even more kind of shopping list Centric, um it has and it has more video and short form video on that vis-à-vis Tick-Tock and so they announced that the show a bunch of shoppable features for shuffles for example. Um They do have some live streaming which one of the conversations that this show is that you know mostly live streaming isn't very high volume and isn't working but what bill was saying in their case is, they're using a i to chop up the live streaming video and turn it into short form video that's not live, and that that's monetizing pretty well so so you know he gave a kind of interesting talk about. [34:10] Commerce getting social getting more Commerce E from his perspective Tik Tok was also a platinum sponsor they had a big booth, um before shoptalk they launched the most robust, checkout experience I've seen on a social platform so they they have a multi-item cart called Tick Tock shop so you can add multiple items you can add actually add multiple items from different vendors all in a single Universal car, and check out a lot of the things that I always point out are usually missing from social check out like in tick-tocks to take tax credit they've added so this is a pretty robust, shopping feature that they've launched and when they launched it. It came with a Shopify integration so the first cuss clients that were on the shop we're all like Shopify customer so you know to me the most recognizable brand was packs on had a had their products on a tick tock shoptalk, and then at shoptalk the announced the first customer that was using their Salesforce integration which is the Cosmetics company e.l.f. [35:19] Um and so so you know we're starting to see. More robust shopping features on at least the tick tock platform, WhatsApp it's owned by meta they were pushing they were also Platinum sponsor they were pushing a lot of newcomers features that they built into their chat interface and so they're they're leaning heavily into this chat for business thing and they have what's called, they've had it for for Facebook and Instagram for a while now they're adding it to WhatsApp so you can kind of. Use WhatsApp is your customer service channel for asynchronous chat and you can natively sell stuff through that, B dance which owns Tick-Tock and you know also one of the biggest Platforms in China they have a they have a couple apps now that are doing really well, and you heard it here first on the show the up-and-coming one in the u.s. is called the laminate which is kind of, Tik toks version of short form video Pinterest it's very product Centric wish you eccentric version of tick-tock, and it's targeted at kind of gen Z, users and they announced shopping features in eliminate so that was interesting, Twitter had a I don't think Twitter had a formal presence that I saw but it kind of leaked during the show that they had applied for a license I didn't realize you. [36:49] I don't know who the governing body here is but to do in app payments so. You know you on musk likes his digital payments and so we try Twitter's moving there. Their shop gave a keynote the founder in Minecon gave a keynote, and he talked about severe shop is a native we social commerce Marketplace, um and he talked about how you know most social commerce experiences just suck and particularly the post-purchase experienced when you're going to get this stuff how you would return it, the shipping confirmation all of all of that sort of stuff oh I forgot my promo code all of that sort of stuff most of these native checkout Schmitt are missing, and so you know he kind of position very shop is a more robust version of all those and, particularly interesting because they have a livestream feature and they're often called out as the livestream success story and he said live streaming is a mixed bag he's like, live streaming converts way better than any of our other media types but it has way poor reach than any of our other media types so his thing was, it's very hard to get people to watch your video live but when they do you can sell them some stuff. [38:09] And then the last keynote that was interesting to me in this whole social space is tapestry which is the parent company of coach, talked about this whole notion that you know people used to discover stuff in store and now they're discovering new products they want to buy on, Kamar on social media platforms, and so sort of influencers are becoming the new Merchants for all these products and so they talked a lot about their their micro influencer campaign, and I'm always pretty getting interested tapestry turns all of the coach employees into micro influencers so they give, tools to all their sales associates to kind of publish influencer content and they financially reward them for doing that so, so a lot of cool interesting stuff in social commerce in short form video in the hallways there's still a lot of conversation about. How you measure this and how big is it going to get and you know are we going to catch up to China or we inherently different like they're all these kind of. You know open questions that are still out there but there was just a heck of a lot of talk about this whole problem of discoveries not happening on the stood in the store as much it's happening on social networks so, you know how the heck do we make that Discovery happen as much as we'd like it to. Scot: [39:33] Yeah it's a fascinating problem the Pinterest guys have been at it forever and never really broken the code on it you think by now they would figure something out. Jason: [39:41] Yeah this is the most explicitly I've heard them say and we're all in on building Commerce features, um the you know he talked about the progress they've made on onboarding shoppable pins like you know a small percentage of all the pins on the site are, are shoppable right and when I look at readers I have some retailers with huge catalogs and you know they could have. Millions tens of millions and a few cases hundreds of millions of skews and they might have like 6,000 shoppable pins on Pinterest right and so those pins. Do pretty well but it just like the the infrastructure of Pinterest isn't really there to handle these these massive catalogs yet. Sounds like they're working on it and by the way the CTO at Pinterest used to be the CTO at Walmart so he Jeremy King knows how to do Commerce at scale. Scot: [40:33] Wow cool. Jason: [40:35] So then my third trend is. Like the most megatrend of the year at the show and outside the show and they're actually a bunch of things that were like hinted at the show that then happen afterwards is the hole, emergence of artificial intelligence and whether you want to generically talk about artificial intelligence or specifically about large language models or generative AI like theirs, there's a million ways to slice this but I did a fun thing I scraped all the exhibitors from the the show and there's something like. 680 something exhibitors at the show if I'm remembering approximately right but 23% of them describe themselves as an AI company. So everybody has an AI story whether they're you know how a gentleman it is or not. And I'll be honest this is a plea for anyone listening in the show do not send me an anonymous LinkedIn invite telling me that you're the one company that invented a revolutionary way to shop Vai for the first time. Because you didn't. But I get a lot of pitches and I'm sure there's some amazing ideas in there but there's also a lot of noise. [41:57] So at the show I think Salesforce may have announced this at their own show beforehand but you know they've had this AI, Persona called the Einstein for a while they announced Einstein GPT for Commerce so for the Salesforce Commerce Cloud they've licensed the opening I technology so they you know you can now, use the their language model for shopping functions on your Salesforce Commerce Cloud thing. Meta did a keynote and they talked a lot about. [42:31] The use cases they saw for AI and and they maybe like an interesting comment that Mark Zuckerberg and Senior leadership are spending the bulk of their time on AI, and it almost feels like they're starting to do this pivot we're like they're calling they're trying to call a i part of the metaverse so that they can, stay say that they're still on the original Mission, but it seems like they're leaning into a I more than the metaverse right now and they hinted about some new image tools and then this week they released a new tool called segments anything which is sort of like an intelligent, um tagging and masking system so I put it through its Paces it's pretty powerful. [43:17] You know imagine you're you have a catalog of 100 million a pair of pieces of apparel and maybe your Marketplace so all that content was developed by different people and you want to show all of the dresses, on a mannequin instead of a live model and you don't know if you have the talent rights to the live models. The segment anything makes it super easy to, Why move all those those dresses to a mannequin or to a flat you know, merchandising hero image or whatever you want to do like so these these tools are solving real business problems for for high-volume e-commerce sites that are pretty interesting. There was a lot of talk at the show there weren't so many scheduled sessions on AI because if you think about it. [44:04] Shopify or shoptalk you know booked other sessions months ago so I need before all this chechi Beauty Buzz started and so the titles of the sessions weren't so much a i generated but the content and all the sessions was AI Centric, um she PT is something we've talked about several times on the show we probably should do a deep dive but they launched a new framework called plugins and so now for the first time you can extend chat GPT with actual Commerce actions so you can say plan I said make a meal plan for a week I want it to be keto friendly I want the meals to all be under 2,000 calories for the day and cost less than $20 and be easy to make and order all the ingredients and chechi PT will, build you a meal plan figure out the calories figure out all the ingredients and place an order with instacart or Shopify for all the stuff on that that shopping list and as you and I have talked about. The chat CBT website is now a huge platform and it was the fastest technology in human history to get to 100 million active users it took him two months and so there's over 100 million people using that website every month and they can now use it for actually buying stuff if they so choose. Scot: [45:21] Yeah the plug-in framework is amazing the it's kind of a whole new platform it's crazy. Jason: [45:28] It's pretty exciting a nuanced conversation I'm having with clients is that plug-in framework is not for the API so it's not so much like extend the capabilities of the, AI engine you're getting from open a.i. that you're building in your own branded mobile app it's extending the capabilities of the website URL owned by chat gbt owned by open a right and so. It really like they're creating a destination that arguably is going to compete with Amazon or Tik-Tok for visits and attention and so it I don't know if that is kind of a, you know a short-term thing until this functionality gets you know ubiquitously deployed or whether that's permanently going to be a super high volume destination but it's super interesting right now. Scot: [46:17] Yes fastest product 200 million users of statue PT so it's well on its way to being a whole new destination and it's been funny watching Google be so dominant for so long and all the excesses of, one time I went there with an engineer and he had a hissy fit that he didn't get fresh coconut milk and and yeah it just has been raining money out of the sky for those guys for so long it's going to be interesting to see them with a new competitor and see how they react, I think I think they've had it easy for so long that's going to be very hard for them to react at all. Jason: [46:49] Yeah the one of the Keynotes was this guy Sean Downey who's the president of America's for Google and that was his kind of first position he's like. Yeah you know search is one of the ways you'll use generative AI but, you know they're like I'm really excited about all the capabilities that you know we've built into Google Cloud platform to enable other people's to do Ai and so you know they're they're kind of saying like hey don't look over here at the large language models where we're not doing very well like look look at all these other things, but he did kind of you know he he openly talked about it and he's like hey from our standpoint. There's three things that you're going to see retailers do with a I right, where you know you're going to use it to help businesses grow You by better ads do better marketing better targeting stuff like that, you're going to improve operational efficiencies and he talked a lot about the demand forecasting use cases Amazon later gave a keynote where they talked about how they're really leaning into a i for for supply chain efficiencies, and then you're you know you're going to have new customer experiences like it's going to be a lot easier to shop for a product you saw in an image or that you can see with your phone or, or things like that then it than it ever was before and so so yeah he talked about it. [48:14] You know Amazon talked about how they're seeing that they now have 600,000 skews that they ship in 90 markets same day. [48:24] And so the big question is what's the right 600,000 excuse to ship and and which ones in which markets. And so there are saying that like this is really a problem that you know is way more efficiently so via a Ai and so there you know increasingly turning over the, the demand forecasting to these AI models they're also like heavily leaning into a i automation for the, the Fulfillment centers and you know you've talked about. They originally acquired Kiva and which was kind of an early a i model and they were kind of slow to really push that out to all the Fulfillment centers but it sounds like with their new focus on efficiency. The the heat is turning up on automating all these these fulfillment centers with quite a bit more. Um so those those kind of supply chain and back of house AI stuff we talked about a lot a thing that I didn't think about that's coming up a lot is. AI for employee training like that they're all these. [49:28] Tools about training people and helping people understand new Concepts and having access to vast knowledge bases and things like that and so a lot of the use cases that the show were, AI tools for employee upscaling in education which I thought was pretty interesting. Of the obvious application that we've done the most with is AI for product content so you know writing better product descriptions writing more unique product descriptions generating better in images, stuff like that and then again not a formal session but a lot of hallway conversation about. The brand risk associated with all of these AI engines so you know Getty is suing one of the big AI engines for kind of illegally training, on trademark Getty Images there was big news this week that some a bunch of Samsung Engineers were taking their most. [50:31] Why proprietary secret code like the debugging code for some of the the you know silicone chips that suck that Samsung makes, and uploading them to chat gbt to debug which you know then means open a.i. employees had access to all this you know all these Sam, secrets, um so they're a lot of those kind of things and the most bizarre but interesting keynote at the show and I think shoptalk always gets one of these like left-field Keynotes where you go why is this person in a Commerce show was Jeffrey katzenberg. [51:03] Who's you know one of the founders of DreamWorks and he works for a VC now or is one of the founders of a VC I think it's called Wonder company, and one of the companies in their portfolio is a net is an AI company called Natoma me and, they're trying to solve part of this brand safety thing they've invented their own flavor of, large language model they're calling sanctioned a I wear the the AI model is trained on a constraint set of data and it can only learn from that data, and so their pitch is hey you want to have an employee knowledge base and you don't want it to run them run amok and start trying to talk employees into leaving their spouses and stuff like that that like, the sanctioned a I approach is a much, bran safer sensible way to do it so I don't know where that all that out but it's it's super interesting to think about some of these problems. Are you worried at all about AI. Scot: [52:07] I am yeah there's there's a lot of icky things to be decided you know where yeah right now these things are crawling all this data and coming up with these insights from you know is that fair use copyright none of the IP laws were written with any of those in mind sir, there's a whole lot of lawyer and that's going to have to go on to figure it out so then being able to turn it on your own data is super handy because you own it and you could have your own little way either. It's happening so fast you can't even keep track of it you know there's there's people that now have wired a chat GPT to these 0 code interfaces so you can using your voice and some prompts you can build apps now it's just kind of. It's really crazy to see where this is going so fast. Jason: [52:52] Yeah yeah yeah I mean to me the speed is the the super exciting so a scary thing there was this letter that came out last week you know that was signed by, um a bunch of like super credible AI researchers and also some. Some like interesting you know competitors and people would likely ulterior motives there was calling for a pause on on all AI research that's more powerful than Chet CPT for and so now, you know all of my clients that are like hey I think I should be doing a I but you know, I have too much on my plate and I don't know what to do they're now using this letter as kind of an excuse to slow play it right because they're like. Like what are the you know concerns and ethics about all this stuff so I do I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong but this letter is I'm kind of dubious of this letter did you follow the. Nothing at all. Scot: [53:51] Yeah I don't think it's kind of causing one to slow down by any means so it seems. Jason: [53:58] That's a point like like how could it like a it's like. Is China gonna follow the pot like you know I mean you're not like them nobody's gonna be able to enforce it like there's no like what's the governing body that's going to enforce that and it has language in it like. Stop AI models more powerful than Chet gbt for well what's the metric for how powerful a large language model is. [54:25] Like how you know is bared more powerful I don't know. [54:30] Yeah so yeah I don't know but it it does put some fear uncertainty and doubt in the whole thing which is just kind of interesting and then the last of my four Trends is retailers becoming platforms, so you have a bunch of big retailers Amazon Walmart and instacart the between them had seven booths at the show. Walmart was a two-time gold Platinum sponsor of the show right so they separately have a Walmart marketplace booth, Walmart Commerce Technologies Booth where they're selling they're their SAS Commerce platform they're selling their Walmart go delivery services and they separately had a booth for Walmart data Ventures which is illuminate and all these, these other services like monetizing Walmart data, Amazon had three booths they had a by with prime Booth which is super interesting and they were they were touting, 25% sales with Don sites that added by with Prime and there was a lot of hallway conversation about the pros and cons of by with, that Amazon pay Booth which I found it interesting that they didn't roll Amazon pay into the buy with prime booth that it was its own separate booth and then. There are third booth that I have to be honest I think it was watch before the show but I had never heard of it till the show called Amazon today are you familiar with Amazon today. [55:56] Yeah so this is a service for brick-and-mortar retailers to list their in-store inventory, on Amazon search and if a customer wants to buy it they'll have an Amazon Flex driver go to your store pick it up and then deliver it to the customer. [56:13] So it's extending the marketplace inventory to the to the you know these brick-and-mortar retailers and so I, GNC PacSun and Superdry were three retailers that were always piloting it and I I think what that means is like, retail to the word that you know who's inventory isn't Shopify which is funny that it's Amazon. [56:37] But yeah I hadn't heard of that service and that's interesting like I'm digging into that service more but like. It just super interesting that like a company that you think of as a, competitor for a bunch of retailers has three separate booth that are booths at a retail trade show selling stuff to other retailers and by the way they're huge Marketplace they did not have a booth recruiting marketplace hours, I'm assuming because most of the new Marketplace sellers are located in other countries. And then instacart who you think of is a b2c company that has a bunch of consumers going in their website they had a booth totally dedicated to all the white labeled services, they're selling and most of them have carried in the name so I call it carried everything they call it instacart platforms, so it just super interesting to me to see all of these retailers again saying. Selling bananas is a well margin business it's way better to sell Services I Scot Wingo used to do it at Channel advisor. [57:48] Exactly yeah so you have a lot of Prospectors that are starting second careers as as pickaxe salesman. Scot: [57:56] Analogy. Jason: [57:58] Yeah and then of course there's all the, the actual platforms that are you know dramatically expanding their their services so Shopify waiting into the Professional Services Market a lot more Salesforce weaning into it and then a social commerce platform snap, actually like was selling all of their AI stuff which there are I'm sorry AR stuff which they're pretty you know advanced in as white labeled services to build into your own apps. Scot: [58:27] Probably cleanses and. Jason: [58:29] So if you want like if you have a product catalog that you need you know that's why I get home decor and you need to visualize it in the canoe in the consumer wants to, you know kind of use a IR to visualize it in the room or makeup Tryon or, or you know those kinds of things or maybe you want to scan a shelf and overlay reviews over product on the shelf or any of those kind of a our use cases you can now license a set of snap. And I think they call it snap are at our ease which I think a res is acronym for something but. You can you can license all those capabilities from snap instead of building them yourself. Yeah so that was in my those were my big takeaways from the show the kind of stuff that didn't make my list but came up a few times, there's a lot of talk about the the macro-environment macroeconomic environment and all the uncertainty there were a lot of sessions around convenience and Rapid delivery, they're you know our e-commerce and resale is still a big thing and there's kind of just this General notion that that it's the year of efficiency so retailers are investing a lot more in. In stuff that has a short term Roi and that's kind of back-of-house in the lesson just growing at all costs. Do you feel like you've been in the show now. Scot: [59:52] I knew that was awesome you saved me a lot of travel and a lot of trips in Starbucks. Jason: [59:58] Yes but you missed enjoying a bunch of iced lattes with me and you know hearing from all the fans that appreciate your your knowledge and POV on this podcast. Scot: [1:00:10] Yeah we need to open up an auto segment and then I can justify the trip can't do it right now. Jason: [1:00:16] Oh I forgot the most important part they announced a new show shoptalk fall. So shoptalk is normally in April they have two shows in the u.s. shoptalk in April grocery shop in October and then there's a shoptalk Europe that's in I think June or May so they're starting in 2024 they're going to have to shop talk shows in the US, the regular shoptalk in Las Vegas in March and a shoptalk fall which will be in my hometown of Chicago in late September. Yeah so second show I think there's some controversy if you're an exhibitor at grocery shop and shoptalk those two shows might be pretty close together and it could be annoying but I'm excited that a bunch of my Commerce friends will have an excuse to come visit me in Chicago and I'm thinking we I got a host some kind of event for a meet up for for listeners that want to get together because I never get to schedule meetings with as many people as I'd like to. Scot: [1:01:22] Yeah that's a lot easier to get to than Vegas for me so we'll see. Jason: [1:01:25] Yeah that's why I'm saying is you and I we should have a Jason and Scot Show event and we'll get like. Foxtrot is a local market and restaurant to host like cater breakfast tacos for everyone or something. Scot: [1:01:40] Okay I'm liking the sound of that did they announce the time let's work what will work on it offline. Jason: [1:01:45] And you think like if I was going to do a podcast I would do some research and get my intern on it it is October 8th through the 10th 2024 in Chicago at Javits Center. Scot: [1:01:57] All right let me check the calendar and get back with you. Jason: [1:02:01] I like it I know that was a lot there was a little bit of Amazon news did you have a POV on the recent layoffs. Scot: [1:02:11] It's been pretty dry an Amazon lamp they're just really trimming staff like crazy so they announced yet another 9,000 way off so I think this gets up to 27,000 because Amazon rules the warehouse people into their head count they're always in a million so it's feels like a small percentage but these are coming from, yeah I've heard the Alexa team got hit pretty hard, Lester was way out in front and all these new chat gbt capabilities far none of them are on a device yet but pretty soon I think we'll see it all over the place, there's some speculation maybe Microsoft will come out with a new phone products that would be that gbt enabled which would be kind of an interesting next-gen phone platform so I think. They've got a lot of precious they got macro they having to trim their head count to hit their numbers from a bottom-line perspective they were hired and then they're in this kind of gun / a knife fight over a i. So it's very interesting to see what they do the rest of the year around some of these these areas it's a tough sledding for sure for Amazon right now. Jason: [1:03:19] Yeah it's interesting because on the one hand you if you look at how many people Amazon added over the last 18 months like the layoffs don't you know. Don't seem that severe but it is interesting like some of these layoffs were in pretty key areas like areas that you would think of is primarily. Like income additive like they like they laid off people in the Amazon ad unit right which. To me that's not necessary where you'd expect to see. Ceci hits I personally am a little sad that they have this huge focus on efficiency because I very selfishly feel like the the echo Hardware is getting kind of long in the tooth and now there's all this new exciting large language model capability and like I'm super eager to see like a vastly improved. Solution there and I'm kind of worried that like all of this efficiency stuff is going to slow down the likelihood that it's going to come from Amazon. Scot: [1:04:19] Yeah I talked to a lot of people at Amazon still and something happened kind of during the pandemic where, the whole work from home and then the explosion of employees they've lost their efficiency so you know for a long they did it better than any other company with the two pizzas team Rule and all this Jazz but now there's so many to Pizza teams running around none of them know what's going on and it's kind of total chaos has become very hard to get stuff done, so I don't know them feel like trimming that count can be a good thing. Jason: [1:04:53] Yeah no I feel like the investors have mostly liked it by the way but yeah I think the big problem is its Day 2 at Amazon. Scot: [1:05:04] To be sets the stage for a bob Iger like return of pesos at some point maybe he'll. Jason: [1:05:10] Yeah I think that was that was on the bubble for me as a prediction for this year so. I don't think I actually pulled the trigger on it so I hope it doesn't happen this year I'll kick myself. But Scott what a shock we've used a lot of time again so as always if you found value we'd love it if you jump on iTunes and leave us that five-star review, and super appreciate everyone taking the time and all the kind words that you passed along the Scott and I the we're grateful that the show adds value and we really appreciate you guys. Scot: [1:05:47] Yeah have a great spring break Jason and until next time. Jason: [1:05:51] Happy Commercing.

中国著名电商品牌拼多多的海外姊妹品牌Temu自去年9月进入北美市场后，它的app下载已经超过Amazon与Walmart，成为在美国下载次数最多的免费应用程序,每月用户超过 1100 万。Temu 也是继SHEIN之后，逐渐成为另一个成功登录北美，来自中国的电商品牌了。在最新这一集“柠檬变成柠檬水”播客里，主持人俞骅和Poy Zhong以Temu在今年美国超级杯上一掷千金的广告为例子，与大家聊聊Temu为何在这么短时间里成功登入北美，以及他们可能面临的挑战。收听方式:请您在Apple Podcasts, 小宇宙APP, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music等，搜寻”柠檬变成柠檬水“。

EP303 - Amazon, Walmartand E-com Q4 Results  In this episode we cover: Amazon Q4 Earnings Walmart Q4 Earnings US Department of Commerce Q4 e-commerce data Discussion of Temu and other Social Commerce News Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 303 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, February 23rd 2023. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 303 being recorded on Thursday February 23rd 20:23 that's a lot of three Scott I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott sure listeners it could have been worse we could have done it on 22 to 23 so there'll be a lot of tooth so we broke up the to smooth some threes. Jason: [0:52] I believe that was episode 223 was on that yeah. Scot: [0:56] I had I am not a big sports ball person but I watched the Super Bowl every year for the commercials and I had, I know you're the grand poobah of all things advertising and I had an ad question for you. Jason: [1:12] Yeah awesome you've come to the right place hit me. Scot: [1:15] What is to EMU and why is it not the same thing as wish.com. Jason: [1:22] That's a great question I can only partially answer so Teemu is a e-commerce site. In as far as I know at this point only in the United States of America it's owned by pin duo duo in China which often is called a PDD and depending on how you count PD is the second or third largest e-commerce site in China in China it's a super interesting gamified model where like you get your friends to go in on the deal with you and it drives your deal cost. Down so everybody saves more when you all by together kind of thing so it's a. Scot: [1:58] Okay group buying used to be called back in the day. Jason: [2:00] Social shopping exactly and so it's super interesting and they're doing really well so they launched an e-commerce site in the u.s. it appears that it's primarily a catalog they built by aggregating a wide variety of different. Producers in China and it does have very much of a wish Vibe like it's a lot of. Extraordinarily inexpensive apparel and you know inexpensive tchotchkes that you probably didn't know you need but like if you start browsing the side it for a.m. on a Friday night you're. You're gonna end up making some ill-advised purchases and then it seems like everything drop ships from factories. In China via u.s. post so they if you remember back in the day wish was like very slow shipping like to 26 weeks. T mood typically quote six to eight days they launched in November I ordered a couple shirts and they promised me like a delivery and they actually arrived in like five days to the United States. Scot: [3:07] Wow. Jason: [3:08] Yeah so it was reason via US Post Office in the u.s. portion at least and you know there's this. International postal treaty that probably meant it was super inexpensive for Teemu to ship it via US Post Office to the US. But what was interesting to me is I give you an idea of how cheap this stuff is the I ordered a dollar shirt that was forty percent off with free shipping so. I literally have 60 Cent shirt delivered from China and five days. Scot: [3:40] Cool is it like wish were eighty percent of the businesses hair extensions. Jason: [3:44] Yeah so I don't have a break it is a lot of that like it's a lot of like USB accessories and stuff I do think it's more heavy on apparel and I have talked to people that are more hip and in the know than me that think there's like, that you know it's very short-term apparel it's kind of disposable apparel so they're all the usual caveats about being an ecological disaster probably apply. But I have been told that they have that they like have some interesting on-trend Styles and things on that that like for some demographics it's the, the apparel selection is appealing but what I do know is they launched in November and when I looked at the year in and it's mostly on a mobile app when I looked at the year in app downloads, it was the eighth most downloaded shopping app. On iTunes so more downloads than eBay for example over the year and Timmy was only in there for two months and and so it's kind of funny I'm a little embarrassed I. [4:52] Posted some stats on LinkedIn about mobile apps and I said and don't sleep on Teemu it looks like they're running fast and then a week later they ran that Super Bowl ad that you saw which is certainly going to Goose their downloads more and literally right before the game I found out that my company publicist actually produced that Super Bowl at so, it may have seemed like I was promoting a client but In fairness to me I didn't know they were to client when I when I mentioned it. Scot: [5:20] Cool shouldn't you know who your clients are as a chief digital retail strategy officer. Jason: [5:25] I should as a first a first world problem in your business is when you have too many clients to know. Scot: [5:33] You're forgiven. Jason: [5:34] Or maybe that's just a sign of a bad a bed, employing my case but yeah you know holding company like publicist were a Federation of agencies and most of the agencies do their own thing so this is you know a cool creative agency that we have Saatchi & Saatchi out of Los Angeles, um and sure enough they did reach out to me to say hey we have a Commerce client and we'd love for you to come talk to them. Check out their Super Bowl hour and the next they're Super Bowl add in the next hour and so that's how I how I found out there are client thank you guys. Scot: [6:05] You're like you're like I totally predicted these guys would shoot up the charts. Jason: [6:09] I did I did I tried to take credit but seemed like shockingly not everyone in my company follows me on LinkedIn I know. Scot: [6:16] Should be over should be like part of the onboarding. Jason: [6:21] Sometimes I think it should but then other times I think of how many times has probably saved my career that like important people at work Dan see something I like I said I'm going to so I think on the aggregate I'm going to stick with it how it is. Scot: [6:31] Call any other trip reports or anything to go into before we jump into some news I know you're chomping at the bit to talk about some data. Jason: [6:39] Yeah so it is obviously well I guess it's always trade show season but this feels like a special version of trade show season next week is e tell West, in Palm Springs which is usually a good Joe but for sure a good boondoggle if you're trying to get out of the Chicago winter in February Palm Springs is a good, a good place to go so I'll be going there and I have a lined up a couple guests for folks to listen to in the in the subsequent weeks and then the end so that's the end of February the end of March is shop talked and so I'll be giving a talk at shop talk and. And talking to some folks there too so so a couple cool industry events on the on the horizon. Scot: [7:25] Cops are gonna have a little Gap and then we'll have some a lot of show reports to go over I guess. Cooper one of the things we wanted to start today was finally got the last piece of data from 2022 from the US Department of Commerce walk us through what your magic Tableau Data machine is Tanya. Jason: [7:47] Yeah so mid-February US Department of Commerce publishes this quarterly report on e-commerce and so the Q4 data from last year came out in mid-February and so now that we have qu for we can see a whole year so in 2022 us e-commerce sales were 1 trillion, 33 billion in sales so the first time we've officially exceeded a trillion dollars so that's kind of cool. [8:20] What's I guess slightly less cool depending on where you stand is the growth rate so that trillion dollars is 7.4% more than 20 21 largely because 2021. Was a like pretty astronomical year but but to put things in perspective. Over the last 10 years than normal growth rate for e-commerce is 16.4% so 7.4 percent is less than half of what our traditional growth would be. And it's actually the slowest rate of growth. Basically since e-commerce happened so so 2022 is not a, a stellar year for e-commerce growth, now when you look at that three-year stack you say how much did e-commerce grow since before covid it's up a lot it's up 81 percent. [9:17] And you know a trillion dollars total retail sales are about 7 trillion so e-commerce ends up being 14.6 percent of all retail sales, a lot of people like to talk about what percentage of course sales it is because like people don't tend to buy gas. Via e-commerce and Tull spiffy start selling gas and until recently people really weren't buying cars online so a lot of, we could debate the merits of this but a lot of people still have this definition of core retail which doesn't have Auto or gas in it and so if you take Auto and gas out and you say that trillion dollars is 21.5 percent of core retail which. Makes the us about the third or fourth highest e-commerce penetration country in the world. [10:07] Obviously I get a lot of these e-commerce Spike during covid and then kind of regress to the mean but. You know if you look at the e-commerce dollars growth. Were 36 percent above what we would have forecasted. Before covid started and we've sold like 275 billion a year more than we would have expected to sell this year so over the three years e-commerce has, has grown quite a bit and remained high but what is true and worrisome about 20 22 it's the lowest rate of growth we've ever seen and for the first time since e-commerce started. Retail actually grew faster than e-commerce so that the total retail growth number for last year was 8.2 percent versus the e-commerce rate of 7.4 percent so that's an interesting backdrop as we start to get all these. Q4 earnings reports flowing in. Scot: [11:09] Yeah and that's really just you know it's a reversion to the mean right so we had a surge in e-commerce so you Commerce is more coming down more so than retail surgeon is that if we charted that out is that what would see. Jason: [11:23] Ecommerce has not surged as I mean retail is not surged as much as e-commerce has come down so. Yeah so like on the whole the three years of the pandemic were very good to retail and very good to e-commerce the, when they happen with slightly different e-commerce is biggest year was the first year of the pandemic and retails biggest year was 20 was the second year of the pandemic so when you're looking at year over year sales Ecommerce is comping against a big number on the numerator while the denominator suddenly got a lot bigger, for retail and so when you look at it as a percentage of retail it definitely looks like it regress to the mean but when you just look at, net dollars people spend an e-commerce before and after the pandemic. We both we spend a lot more money at retail than we used to and we spend a lot more money on e-commerce than we used to and so the spoiler where the fear is. Is that the new normal or did we just pull in a bunch of demand and that bodes poorly for 2023. Scot: [12:31] Yes go for some tea leaves to help us kind of parse through that we had some interesting earnings first of all we wanted to chat about Amazon's fourth quarter the way I would kind of we didn't do a show on this one because it was really not that much to talk about to be honest with you so they came in just their dramatically lowered over the last couple quarters they have dramatically lowered the the back half of 22 so they the Q4 of this slightly beat that that new Lowered Expectations, and then their q1 guidance was in line with a little bit lower than what Wall Street was expecting but not enough to be super material one thing I thought you would find interesting is they took about a 3 billion dollar charge on restructuring there was they announced they laid off 18,000 people I think most people saw that, and that was 640 million but part of the charge was 720 million to impairment at fresh and go stores I thought you would find that interesting and I guess they had I guess those are the ones they must have planned a bunch of openings and now they've got all this kind of like you know they're kind of half pregnant with this bunch of real estate bunch of stores they want to launch and then they pause that. [13:44] And then one that was interesting to me is we work a lot with these Amazon DSP companies and I've often wondered who insures them because they bang the heck out of them and Amazon increase their reserves for Self Insurance in their transportation Network by 1.3 billion which I thought was interesting given that we see these things just 90% chance if you see an Amazon Prime van it's got a fair number of Dents & Dings on the side of it. Jason: [14:12] Yeah that's yeah that's a hard gig for a van although there probably are no easy gigs for van. Scot: [14:19] Yeah would you think about the freshen go. Jason: [14:21] Yeah so the grocery story is interesting right longtime listeners will remember Amazon kind of retreated from most of their non grocery, retail Concepts I want to say a quarter ago so they kind of they closed all the bookstores they closed the five-star stores and and they kind of said hey we're we're we're revisiting our brick and mortar strategy the one, aspect of brick-and-mortar that they continue to operate where these grocery stores that are called Fresh and these. [14:53] Convenience stores or grab-and-go food stores that are the Amazon go stores that just walk out technology and, you know grocery super important I talk about it all the time it's like the second biggest category of consumer spending and Retail and it's one category where Amazon hasn't done very well arguably Whole Foods hasn't done very well since Amazon bought them, and you know the magic question was where they going to invent a more successful grocery Concept in Amazon Fresh and then this quarter they answered that question no now essentially said we haven't found anything differentiated enough in the Amazon Fresh stores to make us want to scale them, rapidly we haven't given up on Grocery and we're going to continue to work on it and roll something new out but we're for sure pulling back on, growth strategy for this current fresh concept, and so so you know it sounds like hey they definitely don't think they've got brick-and-mortar figured out between fresh and Whole Foods and on delivery, last year, you know they started charging even for Prime members they started charging for delivery at Whole Foods and. [16:06] That way I have a hypothesis that that dramatically put a crimp in there, they're grocery e-commerce sales although in a lot of places in the country groceries are delivered by fresh not by Whole Foods so this quarter they also announced that they're adding a delivery fee even if you're a Prime member. For fresh grocery delivery so there is no free grocery delivery option at Amazon, um you know which in my mind puts them at a pretty significant disadvantage vis-à-vis, instacart Walmart and Kroger that are all aggressively acquiring customers with offers right now. Scot: [16:44] Yep Anderson tough category. Jason: [16:45] So grocery seems like a place where like Amazon has put some serious effort in and it has not won yet has not figured it out. Scot: [16:56] One of the other things that's weighing heavily on the minds of Amazon shareholders is the AWS Computing platform saw its growth really dip below 20% all the cloud providers are feeling this Google Microsoft I think Google has laid off a bunch of the people leading their Cloud effort Microsoft Azure is under a bunch of pressure as well and what's happening is as we hit some economic headwinds the users of these Cloud infrastructures are lots of startups that have venture capital and VC rounds are getting few and far between so they are reducing their loads and their trading down you know one of the things you can do on these platforms is have a machine with a certain computer, horsepower you can kind of say you know maybe I'll go down a couple rungs on the ladder of compute horsepower there and save a little bit and. So it's an area where companies are looking to save money very quickly because you're not locked into certainty or anything like that like you would, be with some software as a service platforms. Jason: [17:58] Yeah I think I'm not to give you credit but I think you were one of the first people I saw, talking about that phenomenon and then it became a big thing I think I like Twitter announced that they were slashing 75% of their salesforce.com seats and it just seemed like in the same way that like, you know Middle America when when budgets get tight you know everybody looks at their recurring spending and cuts all these you know apps they accidentally signed up for On the App Store and in the same way it feels like every company in America is like. Going on a SAS diet right now. Scot: [18:31] Yeah I you know I like to coin phrases we famously coined ship again on the show I call it's a split so when you wake up one day and you look around your company and you've got 200 different stats platforms that you're paying it's only $30 a seat a month but there's 1,000 employees using it and you got 200 of them that I can't do the math on that but it adds up very quickly, so a lot of companies are right-sizing, their SAS budgets one of the interesting beneficiaries of this was the Microsoft Azure platform had pressure but the the Office 365 has done amazing because what happens is people say well I'm using slack Dropbox. And you know maybe maybe one of the Google platforms and you know and I also have Office 365 will if you start to reconcile this you can drop drop box for OneNote and. OneNote Drive. Jason: [19:32] Know what you're right one drive. Scot: [19:35] OneDrive yeah and I can drop you no slack for, they have their own teams and then Zoom for teams and then so so Microsoft because they've got one of the most fullest sweets and almost everyone has Microsoft because of office kind of packed in there their they're a huge beneficiary of that SAS Bluett interestingly I think it was enough to offset the this the downgrades they saw it and measure. Jason: [20:04] Yeah that's super interesting. Scot: [20:06] Yeah one of the you know one of the interesting things that when you're in these weird Economic Times when these companies released their numbers it's late enough into the next quarter so this all came out kind of mid-February that they can give a little color and one of the on the current color. [20:23] Quarter, so they're talking about Q4 results but then sometimes they will drop a little bit what we're already we're seeing kind of right now so they did they did talk about AWS had kind of bottomed out at a 17 percent growth rate or something like that mid-teens, so Wall Street took that positively they also said you know they said we're seeing really improved efficiencies and the retail business which I think Wall Street took to mean they feel like they're at this right balance now of, Transportation warehouses and all those things that they had to shed if feels the feels like they're done based on kind of like what they're seeing, there's always this caveat that that's they've only seen 45 days of the corridor so who knows what the back after that looks like. [21:09] The real bright spot and this is interesting because there's this theme going on the economy where services are are kind of growing much faster than Goods and, at Amazon DE Prime Service Group re dramatically grew 17 percent over a year and acceleration from last quarter's 14% so so Wall Street found that really interesting and I think, you know it's hard to it's hard to know why people are picking Prime I think some consumers are going through a reconciliation with their streaming platforms and they're kind of just like that Microsoft example they're saying well if I go to Prime I get Prime video and I can get access my Yellowstone through there and some other things and that's probably good enough maybe I'll turn off. [21:55] I don't know there's this design of these things now so in any case Wall Street was really pleased with this because there's been a lot of talk at Windows Amazon hit Prime saturation, well you don't hit saturation if you have an acceleration of growth like that so so that was you know a couple the positives in the quarter there but interesting enough and you probably know the ads part I think it had yet another Blockbuster business because they're they continue to benefit from that first party you know all this, effectively the biggest retail media Network out there and I know you think a lot about these retail media networks but that was a gift from our friends at Apple to Amazon so that continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Jason: [22:37] Yeah yeah it the rate of growth did slow ride so they were in the like 30s and forty percent a year that it was growing and I want to say it only grew, 20% in Q4 your over here which again faster than AWS and still quite fast but for 12 months that means they sold thirty two point seven billion dollars worth of ads and if you assume, that ads are about 75 percent gross margin that means that the ad business contributed 25 billion dollars in earned income, um and ews last year contributed 22 billion dollars in earned income so, you're you know you basically end up with. Retail media networks contributing more to the bottom line at Amazon even than a WS which they're both great businesses. Scot: [23:31] You know I think the 75% is aggressive I think I don't understand why it's like almost not a hundred percent. Jason: [23:39] I agree I used to use a higher number and then I saw some like industry guys the. Like felt like there's more overhead in there and there are a lot of salespeople you know which don't don't you know scale model linearly so so in, I kind of fell in line with some other analysts and dropped it down to that 75%. Scot: [23:59] Yep. Jason: [24:03] However you size it like I'm pretty confident it's the most profitable business at Amazon and still like although it's slowing down slightly it's still still certainly growing, so that was interesting one that I haven't got my head around yet and I feel like you used to do this math yourself but I'm working on a couple of different models for what. Total us gmv did for Amazon and it's not completely trivial because we know what the first party sales were we know what the, the the units were but you know you have to make some assumptions to kind of convert those units into a GM V and the and the mix of third party is different than the mix of first party. But there but the reason that's interesting is liked by most models you know it it was not a huge, growth year for gmv for Amazon and so again I don't have a official estimate yet but like let's assume. They grew by 10% the. [25:16] Fees that they charge third-party sellers Drew 14%. Um so that the fees they're being able to get out of the third party Marketplace is almost certainly growing faster. Then the third party Marketplace and that's because they're able to raise a bunch of rates and our friends at Marketplace pulse did some math and they feel that on average the average 3rd party seller on Amazon when you add up all the selling cost between F ba and and advertising that the average take rate is now 50%. [25:55] So Well I always remind I mean Amazon is a good place to sell like I'm not saying anyone that they shouldn't use Amazon as part of their mix but I get asked all the time if I should just skip it, any other channel in just exclusively rely on Amazon and to me that's a huge mistake because Amazons. Rightly so going to optimize the profit for them and they're very good at that and so they're you know they're taking a lot of margin out of third party selling because there's a long line of people waiting behind every 3rd party seller that want to sell that same stuff. Scot: [26:27] Yeah you going to have a blended approach and kind of Leverage it to sell the right thing at the right time in the right Channel someone should start a company that does that but we'll talk about that another podcast. [26:42] He's busy car washing right now cool that's the Amazon report anything any other earnings you found in arson. Jason: [26:51] Yeah so Amazon reported pretty early this year I don't know if that was strategic or just have a calendar fell but now we are starting to get all of the more traditional retailers and so I want to say we recording this on Thursday Tuesday Walmart and Home Depot reported tomorrow morning targets going to report so we're starting to get all the the cue for sales data from the big retailers, a bunch of specialty Brands like a lot of the apparel Vans VF and folks have already reported and there is emerging and pretty. Clear picture so maybe before we do the Crip picture I'll just recap Walmart Q4 and I tried to channel my inner Scott because. [27:36] Scot and I are the perfect yin and yang Scott is a you know former public company CEO and Savvy investor and he cares a lot about how these companies perform against expectations and what happens to their, their evaluations and I just care how much stuff they sold all right and so I feel it's funny we both look at like all these earnings through different lenses so through your lens I feel like Walmart was mix I think you'd call it a beat and lower because earnings exceeded analysts expectations they came in at 1.71, per share and the in the analyst Target was 1.51 so that's a pretty good beat Revenue came in and 164 billion for the quarter and the expectation was unearned 59 billion so another good, um but on the bad news I think analysts were hoping for. Guidance of like five or six percent growth for the year and Walmart gave a two to two and a half percent guidance for the year. [28:42] And so basically the story was, we had a solid Q4 and a solid 20 22 but we're expecting things to get more difficult and more lean, in 2023 and they you know overtly said we saw spending slow down in the fourth quarter we saw a shift in the mix that they were consumers were trading down, to lower-cost products they were shifting from wants to needs and in Walmart's mix those needs are a lot less profitable so they're selling more Grocery and less, electronics and toys and home goods and stuff like that, and so the both of the guidance for revenue and especially the guidance for profit at Walmart were where lower and that, to me exactly Echoes a lot of the other earnings we heard like the Peril guys their guidance was awful and they're starting their stocks just Tanked, Home Depot actually had like a really soft Q4 because they said spending slow down at the beginning of Q4 so they cut they missed their. Their earnings expectations for Q4 and they had a little guidance but almost every retailer I've seen report earnings has reported lower than anticipated or has made a lower than hope for guidance, for 2023 so retailers are not super bullish on 2023. [30:05] From a pure sales standpoint it's kind of interesting I try to just to compare apples to apples Walmart's an international company, you know with two big retail Concepts in the US and a bunch of other countries I try to pull out like just Walmart sales in the US, and their same-store sales the three years of the pandemic 20 20 21 and 22 they grew 8.6% 6.4% and 6.6%. Average retail growth is 4.1 percent so they, significantly exceeded the industry average for all three of those years but the industry also did much better for the all three of those years so the industry grew at 7.8 14.4 and 6.9 so, basically Walmart slightly out performed the retail industry and two of the three years and underperformed retailing 2021, but solid growth across all three years and then Walmart is one of the nice retailers that breakout their e-commerce growth separately which. I suspect it's because it's usually pretty robust a lot of other companies have stopped reporting e-commerce and you can. [31:11] Speculate why that is this is they don't report it but Walmart eCommerce growth has been very robust during the pandemic so they grew 69 percent in 2020 11 percent in, 21 and 12 percent in 22 and that is you know their 69% was against an industry growth of 42 percent. And then you know this year they drew 12 percent against a e-commerce industry growth of 7.4 percent so. [31:38] Like pretty good e-commerce growth all the way across on a three-year stack that means Walmart Drew or Walmart Drew 100% over those three years their e-commerce business in the US, the the e-commerce industry grew 81% so Walmart Psych the second largest e-commerce site in the United States and they outperformed, the industry on growth Amazon probably did not outperform the industry like like the the best forecast is Amazon probably Drew 56% over those three years, so Walmart not surprising they're much more than Amazon and e-commerce but they grew much faster than Amazon, eBay ends up being the big loser over the three years they only Group 17 percent so kind of the underperformer and then just for sake of comparison Etsy grew 150 percent over the pandemic Shopify drew two hundred and twenty nine percent. And then this apparel company I talk a lot about, is crazy Chien Drew nine hundred percent during the pandemic and some of their financial data week to last month, and their internal forecast for their us Revenue in 2025 exceeds eBay's forecast for all revenue so that's enough, and apparel retailer that's going to sell more stuff online than all of eBay. Scot: [32:54] Wow that's crazy. Jason: [32:56] Yeah the world changes any of that. Scot: [32:58] Do they have infrastructure in the US like to do shipping and stuffers at all come straight from China. Jason: [33:04] The for Sheehan. I believe that they may have announced that they acquired some some sorting centers or some fulfillment center space in the US but I don't think it's come online yet so I think at the moment it's all being shipped abroad but I'm not certain on that. Scot: [33:21] Wow that's crazy it's a lot of international shipments. Jason: [33:26] Yeah yeah but it sounds like it's moving and then the speculation is you know she in in a lot of markets is a Marketplace and they are not a Marketplace in the US yet but a lot of people are speculating, that they're going to launch a Marketplace this year and especially if you if you think there are bigger overall than eBay. You know they're the biggest apparels reseller in the u.s. online or offline like they're on a on a tear it's pretty interesting and what covered on a different show but like their model about what I think is most interesting about Sheehan is there no Merchants they're literally getting their product ideas from tick-tock. Scot: [34:05] Yeah yeah and having a Marketplace will be good will be another piece of data to feed into this kind of viral Crazy Fast fashion engine that they've created. Jason: [34:15] 100% And it's interesting you know. Scot: [34:18] Third party seller would be scary. Jason: [34:18] Accused of doing that in a in a non-competitive way but and they may or may not be doing that but if they are doing it they're doing it with people like you know Sheehan is doing it with Skynet. Scot: [34:30] Yeah cool any other news on the e-commerce front. Jason: [34:37] Well so those are the big earnings I again there's you know we're going to see a bunch of the other big box retailers report over the next couple weeks so we'll put together a more complete picture of of who the winners and losers were like it's mapping if you look at the US Department of Commerce data and you see the categories that won and lost. By shockingly and I would have gone these predictions wrong at the beginning of the pandemic but you know what category like was about the best specialty category to be in over the last three years it was Sporting Goods. Scot: [35:05] Sporting Goods. Jason: [35:07] Yeah which I would not have thought right and Dix's you know had a like Dick's Sporting Goods has had a particularly good run and in fact they bought Moose Jaw from from Walmart today. The and the worst category to be in in the last three years by far is consumer electronics and so, spoiler alert Best Buy hasn't reported this quarter yet but all indications are that it's not going to be a Rosie. Quarter for Best Buy. Scot: [35:38] You know saw Home Depot had theater announcer pre-warned that things were getting kind of soft and so they've had a tremendous run since 2020 said some point people had to run out of money for upgrading their houses looks like we may be at a Tipping Point there too. Jason: [35:53] Yeah and I would categorize them as kind of one of these middle ones they had a phenomenal first half of the pandemic and now it appears to be slowing down and I you know some of the furniture guys are in that same boat and so that the you know it'll be interesting to see where they net out over the three years like I think they're going to net out to have done better than average but not but not amazingly right and in the middle of the pandemic we were all saying like oh man these are. You know Home Depot might be the biggest winner of the pandemic because everybody redid their backyard. So the that's all the earnings stuff I had the other like kind of pool of interesting news that I'm going to ask a lot about right now all centers around social commerce and what's interesting is, there's like news and diametrically different directions so Tik-Tok which, it's not the biggest social network but it's certainly the fastest growing social network and it's it's you know it has prodigious engagement at this point Tick-Tock launched they've had some native shopping before but they launched a native shops feature and it I would characterize it as the most robust. [37:09] Feature set for shopping on a social platform that I've seen yet so stores can have their own shop they can aggregate their own catalog and it's everything is not just a buy now which is normally how social networks do it they have a persistent cart and you you can add multiple items to a cart um you can change all the attributes of those items which is often a problem with other native checkouts you can get a delivery forecast you get tax calculate promo code you get all these things that like historically social networks Skip and then a feature I would have never expected, it's a multi-vendor universal cart so you can actually buy from multiple Tik-Tok shops, in a single transaction and they take PayPal and Apple pay so I would characterize that as a surprisingly robust, native feature to get people buying on tick-tock, and so if you just saw that news you'd say oh that's the future is you know people are discovering stuff on Tik-Tok instead of in the Shelf in the aisle at a store and now they're just going to buy it right on Tick-Tock but in the the same month, our friends at meta turned off their shopping tab on both Facebook and Instagram and said, hey we tried it and we don't we don't think that's how people want to shop and then I guess one other. [38:37] Selfish piece of. Of content in this whole genre a lot of the hype in the u.s. when I get clients asking me about like the Buzzy thing in social commerce it's a live streaming Commerce then there now 100 live streaming vendors I get pitches every single day from someone that like has reinvented shopping and it's all this wise Freeman Commerce which is huge in China but has not. [39:04] Taking off in the US and so I got tired of repeating my same concerns so I wrote a Forbes article that got pretty popular you know talking about how I felt like live streaming Commerce in particular. Was wildly overhyped and it got a lot of them reactions some people violently disagree most of those were live streaming vendors and a lot of, lives a lot of veterans in the space including like brands that sell abroad we're live streaming is big and in the u.s. like chimed in and said yeah what Jason saying is exactly what we're seeing. And what it boils down to is there's there some genres we're live-streaming makes a lot of sense and I think some of those are genres you shop in a lot like Collectibles and unique items and things like that but like if there's not huge product scarcity, the other main reason people shop in livestreams is for deep discounts and so like you can almost replace the word live stream with flash sale. Um for kind of a similar kind of reach like all of this live stream in Commerce in China is and it's 40% off for the next 20 minutes. And so you know that those that kind of extreme deal-making like hasn't, you know how to legs in the US and so it's not surprising that live-streaming hasn't taken off to the same level but I'd be curious our view. [40:31] Like so when I could talk to clients it's an open question right now like what's the future of social commerce is it important is it not important and that is important like is it going to happen on, the social platforms like Tik-Tok their native check out like does Target need to have their own Tick-Tock shop or. Is social a great tool for Discovery and there's lots of ways to connect that that social discovery with traditional e-commerce experiences and you know I. I don't think there's a clear answer yet in the US but it's a super interesting question. Scot: [41:14] Then that's where it would be driven from like if the Kardashians you know had had some kind of a platform of some kind. They have a big enough audience they could direct that audience to the platform and do things it just doesn't really exist in an integrated fashion right you're in you can't really do it on Instagram because you don't have the check out and it just hasn't come together. Amazon can't do it it's like kind of complicated to bring the influence over there and they may not have liked the right thing the influencer wants to sell. Jason: [41:46] Yeah and I do think it is a different story if you're if you're a mega influencer that has a huge audience and you have a relatively limited catalog right so Kylie Jenner is a perfect example like, I think she could do a lot of business on Instagram and Tik-Tok but like that's a wildly different problem than a wholesaler that has. 5 million 10 million 80 million skus in their catalog and what they should be doing on on social networks. Scot: [42:17] I think it can work for it works for Collectibles because you have this kind of like high Affinity audience it works for beauty and apparel and I think that's kind of it. Jason: [42:26] Yeah what I guess and you know. Fair enough for retailers to have broad Ambitions but if you look at China a lot of this like social commerce and e-commerce like a bunch of it happens on social networks like Dao Yuan which is Tick-Tock there and WeChat which. I guess Loosely similar to Twitter. But a lot of it does happen on platforms owned by the retailer right so towel live which is you know essentially a site owned by by you know the the Amazon of China. Is a big social platform where a lot of people go just to watch short-form videos and buy a lot of stuff. Um and so you know of course if you're a retailer that's what you'd want like you don't want to be disintermediated by the social platform and have to pay a fee and not know who the customer is you you want the customer to come to you. But it. [43:23] It seems like recreating that model in the US would be super hard and the I would argue the retailer that stride the hardest to do it is Amazon and Amazon has all the features like they they have a. They had Amazon live for a while now they have Amazon Inspire and they have a lot of influencers creating unique short form video content with shoppable ads in it. On the Amazon platform but I would say the early indications are that. It's not organically working like you know it's not drying a bunch of people that just want to Doom stroll on Amazon instead of tick-tock and creators aren't going there because they're making a bunch of money, in the normal economic model what what it seems like is happening is Amazon is paying like extra bounties to get creators to try the platform. And they the Creator goes to that platform as long as that Bounty exist but as soon as that Bounty expires and they fall into the normal economic model the Creator's returning to tick tock because they can make more money on Tick Tock than they can on on inspire. Scot: [44:25] Yeah the whatnot platform is pretty fascinating because it has like yes it's got a persistent store on one side of the screen and then you're watching the talent and then you know they can do they can sell things like a variety of different ways that can run an auction they can they can do a limited almost like a QVC I've got 10 of these and when they're gone they're gone and on the screen it does a countdown they can do a. Did you like a markdown I think you would probably call it a filene's basement kind of thing you know that wear it the longer it's there the more discount there is so it's kind of counterintuitive lie you're kind of like. You're kind of like waiting waiting and then you see it. Jumping yet game a discount chicken and then you know it's really fascinating how they you know they give the the. Seller who is largely you know an influencer of so many tools to sell and they're all integrated so once you have your your payment information in there you know you get really sucked into the game and I think that's really what it's going to take like that's what you're missing on you know any of these Tick-Tock may have it I haven't seen their platform but you know certainly Instagram or Facebook reels or YouTube they don't have that level of integration even the Amazon stuff I've seen has been kind of. Not super Innovative from is like a Lincoln you know feels affiliate e it's not like an integrated into the video thing. Jason: [45:55] Yeah no I hundred percent agree I think some of those knit your experiences are a lot more interesting at the moment than any of the super mainstream ones but what not is certainly interesting to look at I do think like Network without any vowels in it is like interesting, flavor of live shopping which seems like it works in some genres so yeah I think some of those the sites are interesting one thing I would point out about all of those is, their definition of influencer is maybe a little different than like the traditional like when we say influencer I think a lot of people think of Mega influencers right in the think of these. These superstars with millions of followers but. Like on most of those these platforms that the influencer is someone with a much smaller following so it's much more of a long tail influencer or a micro influencer. Scot: [46:46] Cool. Jason: [46:49] Yeah so I feel like this is going to be an interesting space to follow throughout all of 2023 but I do think. It's going to be an interesting year in retail and 2023 because I think a lot of retailers are worried at least at the first half is not going to be robust and so you're seeing a lot of shift in investment on retailers from. Kind of like you know mega growth and customer acquisition activities to like. Operational efficiencies and improve our our profit and our short-term returns type activities. Scot: [47:23] Yeah in the I guess used to continue to get pictures from the live stream guys are they on to you now. Jason: [47:30] Yeah no so again you know you can totally pan them on in an article and you know the internet has a short memory so I still get. Get lots of pictures and you know. One of them will be amazing right so it's hard like you want to listen to all these pictures because someone will there's some entrepreneur out there that will have some amazing new idea and odds are like all get jaded and cynical and ignore him and miss it. But the signal noise ratio is pretty tough because you you will have to list you know listen to a lot of like you know poorly articulated pitches to get to that one good one. Sure I'm sure you get that from an investment perspective all the time. Scot: [48:10] I do yeah it's it's hard to pick the if I've learned anything it's very humbling trying to pick winners and losers so I have given up on them. Everyone's a winner everyone gets a trophy Jason. Jason: [48:25] I love it participation that's the modern. Scot: [48:26] Yeah yeah. Jason: [48:38] And I feel like it's both overhyped and legitimate at the same time is all this generative Ai and its use cases, in Commerce right you know so obviously the most Buzzy one of the moment is chat gbt but GPT Beth. There's actually a lot of super interesting tools that are that retailers are starting to legitimately used to get more operationally efficient and I think that might be an interesting topic for a deep dive of Europe for. Scot: [49:10] Yeah yeah guilty pleasure confession I am addicted to mid-journey I love playing with the generative visual a is that there are a lot of fun. Jason: [49:20] Yeah I think they are super interesting and I will tease the Deep dive. So the interesting thing about the she and apparel model is they identify a trend and they have a fast turn Factory that can make literally like a first run of that apparel item in a day. So a day after they see a trend on Tick Tock they've got 100 up for sale and if those hundreds L then they make 10,000 right and so it's this like super fast iteration. You know you're not trying to show for she and because there's a lot of challenges with the model to but that I have heard that she and launches about 10,000 skus a day. So a day to put that in perspective fast fashion like H&M launched 20,000 skews a year and slow fashion like the Gap launch for thousands of years a year so 10,000 a day is. Is game changing but it's super hard to do and so. You know what super interesting about the generative AI for images is. If you're really just doing a one-day test to see if there's demand for some new apparel like. You can generate amazing images of apparel Styles without making the apparel you can put it up on an e-commerce site you can collect a pre-order and then you can make it tomorrow if it gets the enough demand. [50:43] And so you're starting to see people like skip the photography all together and use generative AI to do concept testing and for sure if you're on a parasite in your shopping for. An outfit that's coming from multiple vendors you can use the generative image AI image generation. Render all three of those apparel items from different providers on the same mannequin or increasingly, on a virtual Avatar of the Shopper right so it Walmart you can see all that apparel like on your own body which no apparel looks better on my body than it does on the mannequin so in my case it doesn't work but. I can see the appeal for others. Scot: [51:25] Yeah it's a good inventory turns to not make something and then sell it. Jason: [51:30] Yes exactly it's like moving One Step close yeah so, and in the apparel where they make a lot of that clothes and can never sell it and then it goes into the landfill like you know it helps with the Ecology of the industry so so super interesting stuff the progress is happening super fast so it's exciting, but Scott that's probably a good place to leave it for today because once again we've used up our allotted time as always if this show is helpful we sure would love it if you jump on iTunes and give us that five star review and you know get ready to say hi to me at a couple of these upcoming shows. [52:18] Happy Commercing.

How do we not engage ourselves after going through a failed partnership? Why should we make an effort to create good company culture along with effective leadership? Those who have lost everything they've invested their hearts into because of bad partnerships are often afraid to look for new partners, fearing that it will happen again. However, it wasn't the case with today's guest. It was instead a form of learning, as he finally realized who he should not do business with. The lesson he learned along the way stayed with him. Now he has more than 70 people working with him, demonstrating his ability to scale. In his words, he had to go through the school of hard knocks and screw up things first, break them, fix them, rebuild them, then move on. Even though it wasn't an easy road, it is without a doubt that all that he's gone through has made him a better, wiser entrepreneur. Please tune in to learn more from our guy, Bennett Grove   Bennett Grove II is the Founder and CEO of Fire Dawgs Junk Removal, an award-winning junk removal, and hauling company. He worked as a firefighter/EMT in the United States Department of Defense and served on active Air Force duty. Bennett's mission is to build leaders and pursue growth while providing award-winning service.   In this episode, Bennett shares his junk removal and home services journey as he stresses how important, influential leaders are in the success of a business, along with tips and advice on how he can reach great heights after the complete failure of a partnership.     Why you need to check today's episode:   Understand why you need to know the person you're getting into a partnership with and why you should regularly engage in conversations with them Recognize the importance of effective leadership, good morale, and good company culture concerning scaling a business Find out where to look when you're at that point of wanting to acquire a company or get into franchising.     “Pursue growth… One of the things that I always tell our team members in the company is whatever level you're in, whatever business you're in, master the level that you're in, learn the level above, and then teach the level below.”   – Bennett Grove II     Topics Covered: 01:03 – “I always knew I wanted to do business. I always wanted to be that firefighter that had a side hustle.”  The activities that kept Bennett busy as soon as he finished high school   05:51 – “It was really a lesson in bad partnerships and not having a shared vision, not starting with why, not kind of planning out… None of those intelligent conversations were happening….” Why Bennett decided to get out and sell his real estate portfolio   10:38 – “Those have come from honest conversations and just evaluating where the partnership is, the businesses, and where we're looking to go, and just making sure that you're still aligned because, very easily, it could get sideways.” The history of Mike and Bill's partnership and why it worked so well compared to others; Tyler and his prior partnerships.   15:02 – “I learned a lot about who to partner with, and so I just chalked it up as a learning opportunity… If I'm going to partner with somebody, it's going to be somebody who has shared goals, shared background, character….” When Bennett sold all his properties in real estate, did he ever think he'll never partner again?   18:12 – “The way I like to sum it up is we do those tough, dirty jobs that people either can't do themselves or just don't want to do themselves.” Talking about his business, Fire Dawgs Junk Removal, along with the services they offer to clients   25:09 – “We only worked for high-end remodelers mainly for the most part because typically, there's somebody that can come in at 10.99 that can do it a lot cheaper than us.” Are they mainly doing jobs for homeowners or investors, or is it a little bit of a mix?   28:15 – “The way I've grown the business is by trying to think of it like in an Amazon Walmart type of world where customers want it today or the next day.”  Discussion around the way Bennett estimates the price and scope of work   31:04 – “Do we lose a lot of people that way? Yep. But if we get the job, it's profitable… I learned as I went for sure.”  What determines how far they will go to get a job? Is the tax code also used to their advantage?   37:27 – “I always tell people to build your business, so it's franchisable, but not necessarily that you should franchise….”  Has Bennett ever thought about franchising?   42:36 – “Yes, I want to have a location in every city in Indiana so that we can serve every customer with no trip charges.”  Bennett's take on taking over the state of Indiana, having locations in each city, along with the importance of leadership when taking on franchises   46:14 – “The good news is when you own your own company, and you don't have a franchise system, one of the pros is that you can pick and choose where you go based on your growth strategy.” Expansion strategies: what to do and when to do it     48:23 – “I always call it the highlight reel… The crushing of the grapes in junk removal and home services is you've got to be an effective leader….” Bennett talks about the downside to this type of business as he stresses what happens when you're not an effective leader.   52:38 – “Just like in business; if you don't have good company culture and morale is bad, you're going to have quiet quitting left and right.”  What does an average ticket look like? How important are morale and good company culture in running a business?   58:00 – “The first thing I'm going to look at is what is the leadership on the ground of the business that we're looking at… second is what's the reputation?” Discussion around how Bennett approaches owners of companies that he wants to acquire, along with the after-sale process they do to get a review   1:07:34 – “Pursue growth… One of the things that I always tell our team members in the company is whatever level you're in, whatever business you're in, master the level that you're in, learn the level above, and then teach the level below.”  Advice Bennett would give his younger self   1:09:54 – “In our company, our core values are FIRE – family first, integrity driven, resilient, excellence in all we do.” What is Bennett's why?     Key Takeaways:   “The way I've grown the business is by trying to think of it like in an Amazon Walmart type of world where customers want it today or next day.” – Bennett Grove II.   “I always tell people to build your business so that it's franchisable, but not necessarily that you should franchise. The meaning is that you want to build systems and processes so the things you do are repeatable and scalable, even if you never want to license or franchise the business because that just makes you a better operator; it just makes you have a more clean, organized business. And a more clean and organized business takes better care of the people that work inside of it.” – Bennett Grove II.   “The good news is when you own your own company, and you don't have a franchise system, one of the pros is that you can pick and choose where you go based on your growth strategy.” – Bennett Grove II.   “The crushing of the grapes in junk removal and home services is you've got to be an effective leader. If you are not an effective leader, you are going to have turnover. You are going to have headaches. You're going to be up to three days out worth the job. And if you're not an effective leader, that team is going to leave you, and then you'll have four days worth of customers and nobody to do the jobs but you.” – Bennett Grove II   “Just like in business; if you don't have good company culture and morale is bad, you're going to have quiet quitting left and right.” – Bennett Grove II.     Resources Mentioned:   Firepreneurs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoy3gRqTwdizOrZDplX5GtA Fire Dawgs Junk Removal: https://firedawgsjunkremoval.com/     Connect with Bennet Grove II:   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennettjgrove2/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bennett.grove     Connect with First Responder Financial Freedom:   Website: https://firstresponderfinancialfreedom.com/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/First-Responder-Financial-Freedom-104285545708905 Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/516680892660393

In the fourth hour of the morning show, Larry O'Connor and Patrice Onwuka talked to Gen. Jack Keane and discussed the latest green movement insanity, Twitter censorship of valid COVID data and Amazon-Walmart duel for early Christmas sales. For more coverage on the issues that matter to you, visit www.WMAL.com, download the WMAL app or tune in live on WMAL-FM 105.9 FM from 5-9 AM ET. To join the conversation, check us out on Twitter: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor,  @Jgunlock,  @patricepinkfile and @heatherhunterdc.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Season 2, Episode 2 of The Retail Razor Show and we're tackling one of the biggest trends you need to understand in retail today – Retail Media Networks!Our Retail Avengers team has been eagerly anticipating this topic and recently held the discussion in our Clubhouse room, to uncover the truth about retail media networks and why retailers should (or should not) care about them. Is it about top line revenue? Margin? First-party customer data? Or all of the above? To help cut through the clutter we invited the industry's leading analyst and expert on the topic – Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst for retail & ecommerce at Insider Intelligence, to give us the scoop!Your hosts, Ricardo and Casey, are then joined by Andrew one more time to dig into what's happened since the Clubhouse recording and consider the reality retailers and brands should think about when evaluating retail media networks. This episode is tailor-made for retailers, brands, marketing and advertising agencies – there's something for everyone, and you'll want to take notes during this one!News update! We're sitting at #21 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list, so please keep those 5-star reviews in Apple Podcasts coming! With your loyal help, we'll move our way up the Top 20 in no time! Leave us a review and we'll mention you in a future episode! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, including E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS2E2 The Retail Avengers & The Power of Retail Media Networks[00:00:00] Pre-Show Intro[00:00:00] Casey Golden: So Ricardo, there are two kinds of people in this business, those that love and depend on ads and those that can't stand it and strategize to avoid it. Which one are you?[00:00:11] Ricardo Belmar: I admitted I am of two minds here on the one. The marketer in me loves talking about advertising when it comes to creating messaging and finding the right mediums or reach your audience. But then on the other hand, I'm also a consumer and I can't help, but consider advertising to be just like what professor Scott Galloway puts it attacks on the poor, who can't buy their way out of it.[00:00:31] Casey Golden: Okay. That's like cheating. You have to pick one. You can't be in both camps.[00:00:36] Ricardo Belmar: Why not? You know, the world of commerce is very gray. It's not black and white.[00:00:39] Casey Golden: Hm, you have to pick one. I will die on my sword. You have to pick it's either one or the other. You can't be on both teams. [00:00:47] Ricardo Belmar: But what? So now there are teams?[00:00:48] Casey Golden: There's always teams There are only two kinds of people and you went and created a third person.[00:00:55] Ricardo Belmar: I I'm just expressing thoughts on this topic. I didn't realize I was choosing which team I'm on or creating an entirely new person. I mean, I don't know what kind of podcast starts the show by creating new kinds of people and putting everyone into one bucket or another.[00:01:08] Casey Golden: Who said anything about buckets?[00:01:10] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. Fine. Not, not buckets. How about different brands of vodka?[00:01:12] Casey Golden: different brands of vodka have nothing to do with this. [00:01:16] Ricardo Belmar: It's a metaphor. [00:01:17] Casey Golden: are you sure? I have a feeling you're just making us run out of time to intro your topic.[00:01:22] Ricardo Belmar: Well, you brought up advertising and then we branched off into buckets.[00:01:26] Casey Golden: No really buckets of vodka have nothing to do with this week's show with all this talk of buckets. We're not going to have time to talk about retail me....[00:01:36][00:01:36] Show Intro[00:01:56] Introduction[00:01:56] Ricardo Belmar: Hello, and welcome to season two, episode two of the Retail Razor Show. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.[00:02:02] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden. Welcome. Retail Razor Show listeners to our unapologetically, authentic retail podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everybody else in retail and tech alike.[00:02:14] Ricardo Belmar: So Casey, here we are second episode of the new season coming right off our strong opening with the Metaverse, which by the way is quickly becoming a very popular episode.[00:02:23] Casey Golden: It's an important topic. I'm not so sure it's popular. I mean, there's so much hype out there about the metaverse. If there was one topic that needed someone to cut through the clutter. This is it. [00:02:33] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, if that's the number one, I have to say this week's topic is pretty darn close if not tied right up there with the metaverse plus it's one of my favorites.[00:02:42] Casey Golden: That can only mean one thing. This must be the week we're covering retail media networks. [00:02:47] Ricardo Belmar: You got it! Yes. This week is all about retail media networks. One of our top 10 predictions for 2022 back in season one, episode four. And it's another hot topic that our Retail Avengers crew had been anxiously waiting to cover for so long. And we go pretty deep on this one.[00:03:03] Casey Golden: That's right. But when we cover a topic, we really, really cover a topic. We bring in the big shots to dive in, bring it home. We had an awesome special guest that joined us on clubhouse for this topic.[00:03:18] Ricardo Belmar: And when you want a big shot to step in and talk, retail media networks, who ya gonna call?[00:03:21] Casey Golden: I'm guessing it's not Ghostbusters, but yeah, I see what you did there. Um, you're really gonna try to get this back into referencing eighties, pop culture.[00:03:31] Ricardo Belmar: I am all in for that challenge. Indeed but, but no, of course it's not the Ghostbusters it's even better. We brought in none other than Andrew Lipsman, principle analyst covering retail, and e-commerce at e-marketer insider intelligence.[00:03:44] Casey Golden: Andrew has done so much research and forecasting into retail media networks. This was such a good session on clubhouse. We of course, had to bring Andrew back to talk with us again for an update. So after we listen to clubhouse, which was recorded a few months ago, we'll come back and chat with Andrew to see what the latest happenings are in the world of retail media[00:04:06] Ricardo Belmar: It'll definitely be worth the wait. So with that said, since this is a topic that needs no further introduction, let's dive right in and listen to the Retail Avengers and the Rise of Retail Media Networks. [00:04:23] Clubhouse Session[00:04:23] Ricardo Belmar: And welcome everybody. Welcome back to the retail razor room. We've got a great topic today. The room title says the Retail Avengers and the Rise of Retail Media Networks, which is absolutely one of my favorite topics lately.[00:04:35] And as anyone who's following along in our podcast knows it was one of our top 10 predictions for 2022. I'm thrilled to have someone I consider an expert in retail media networks, Andrew Lipsman, and Andrew. I'll let you introduce yourself in just a moment. For those of you who might be new to our rooms, I'm gonna let each member here of the team introduce themselves quickly. And Casey, why don't we start with you? [00:04:58] Casey Golden: Hi, I'm Casey golden. I'm the founder of Luxlock, a retail experience platform.[00:05:04] And I have spent my career on the fashion and supply chain tech side of the business building Franken stacks, and now I'm slay ' em [00:05:12] Ricardo Belmar: fantastic. And Jeff, [00:05:14] Jeff Roster: hi Jeff Roster, former Gartner and IHL retail sector analyst. Now serving on several boards, including the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University and the host and producer of This Week in Innovation[00:05:27] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Great. Thanks, Jeff. And Brandon. [00:05:29] Brandon Rael: Good afternoon everyone, Brandon Rael in the New York area. I've been in around the retail industry, my whole career, and lately I've worked abroad with fortune 100 companies to drive business and innovation transformations and really to adjust their operating models to the current consumer and digital trends and behaviors.[00:05:48] Happy to have to be back on this platform. [00:05:50] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks Brandon. And Andrew to introduce yourself as well to the audience here. [00:05:54] Andrew Lipsman: Thanks Ricardo. So I'm Andrew Lipman, the principal analyst covering retail and e-commerce at e-marketer. So retail and e-commerce is a, is a pretty wide purview, but I'd have to say in the past year or so 70% of my time has gone pretty exclusively to retail media. It's just become such a hot topic. I do have a background in digital advertising as well. So the fact that commerce and advertising have intersected so nicely in the form of retail media has just become a, a coverage sweet spot. So I have leaned into it.[00:06:25] I I've been a part of the forecast that we've done at e-marketer to help round out the picture of the space. But I, I often say that I, I think, you know, we're just getting started. I mean, we're really in the second or third inning of what I think is just one of the biggest trends that we will see in digital advertising and commerce.[00:06:41] So I'm excited about where we are and, and also what's next. [00:06:45] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Great. And I, I gotta say, I, I share that enthusiasm for this space. It's also one of my favorite topics and we've been saving this one for the room. So I'm glad to see that we have some loyal fans here that are joining us in the audience.[00:06:59] And so really quickly, I'm Ricardo Belmar. For those of you in the audience that don't know me, I host the retail razor room here and also co-host with Casey golden, the retail razor podcast. So if you're not to subscribe to that, I encourage everyone to check that out. You'll hear some of our favorite past clubhouse sessions there, as well as some other interesting interviews and other topics that we're, we're bringing to that medium. I'm currently lead partner marketing advisor at Microsoft for retail and consumer goods. And let's go ahead and jump into this topic and I'm gonna lean over to you, Andrew, cuz as, as you just kind of nicely put, you were spending so much time on, on retail media networks.[00:07:37] It was one of your, I think top five trends you, you gave for 2022, right at the end of last year as well. Can you kind of set the stage for us? Tell us a little bit about where retail media networks stand currently in terms of, ad spending, what, what are you forecasting as growth for that?[00:07:54] And also give us a definition of what you would call a retail media network. What is it? What is it not. [00:07:59] Defining Retail Media Networks[00:07:59] Andrew Lipsman: Sure. So let's maybe start with the definition. I mean, I think of a retail media network as any sort of an ad network that exists on a retailer's owned and operated assets, which historically really has, has kind of met in store.[00:08:13] More recently it's been on e-commerce sites and apps. But I'd also widen the definition a bit to include any media that is powered by retailer first party data. That's a, a reasonable slice of what we're seeing in retail media ad spend today. It's about 10% of the market. But it's a part of the market that's only gonna grow as you start seeing that first party data kind of connect into all sorts of inventory, whether that's display and video online, increasingly connected TV and then other digital media assets.[00:08:45] So that's kind of how I, I define the space our definition of, of digital retail media ad spend for 2022 in the us showed just under 41 billion in spending growing in about 30, over 30% for the year. This year that's down in terms of growth rate from the previous years were, were upwards of 50% growth.[00:09:05] But it's actually about the same amount of incremental spending coming into this market every year. In fact, if you go from 2020 on it went from about 21 billion to 31 billion to 41 billion, 2023, we're projecting 51 billion and then 61 billion. So it just sort of lands nicely that way, where it's about 10 billion in incremental spend every year to date and then also what we're projecting for the next few years going forward. So that's a big reason why this is such a, a big emerging opportunity. And, and just to put that, those numbers in context, cuz you know, you hear a big multibillion dollar number. You don't just have the context for it.[00:09:42] By the end of that period, when it's 61 billion, that will be about one in every five digital advertising dollars, obviously an enormous very profitable market.[00:09:52] Ricardo Belmar: So that was going to be my next question, when you look at that growth, as you said, it was going to be one in five of every ad spend dollar. If you're a brand, how are you deciding where to put that spend? What's the appeal to be spending your money with these retail media networks. And maybe even before that question, let me make this a two parter question and then I'll turn to some of the other speakers up here for their thoughts, but for the retailer themselves, cuz it does seem like every week we hear of yet another retailer who's launching their new retail media network.[00:10:22] I think Ulta beauty was the most recent that that comes to my mind. What's the appeal for the retailer? Is it really just the incremental revenue and margin from this ad spend that they're getting from brands? Or is it about getting more data? Is it a combination of both? [00:10:36] Andrew Lipsman: So everything that you mentioned is true, but just to get right to the heart of the matter, it's the margin. In most cases, the incremental revenue is, is gonna be pretty modest.[00:10:45] There's not that many retailers that have the potential to grow their top line in a huge way from this. But if you're a retailer who's treading on, you know, modest to thin margins and you, all of a sudden can introduce a new revenue stream that maybe drives 30 or 40% net margins, it changes the whole profit profile for your company.[00:11:06] So that's what everyone's chasing. They've seen what's happened to Amazon. Maybe, the last two quarters, not withstanding, if you pay close attention to Amazon's earnings, you would've noticed that amid the pandemic as their ad revenues really grew. And for a few quarters, I think it was growing 60, 70, 80% year over year.[00:11:23] All of a sudden Amazon was just blowing its profit expectations out of the water by like multiples by two or three times what, what wall street was expecting. So everyone's seeing that and they're paying attention to it and realizing that it can totally transform the bottom line of, of their business.[00:11:38] But the big question is whether they can get there. And as you've said, everyone's a media network today. They've all flooded into the space. And the question is realistically how much incremental revenue and margin can they drive at the end of the day? [00:11:51] Ricardo Belmar: So I, do have a follow up to that, but before I get to it, I want to ask the other analyst on stage, Jeff, what are your thoughts on, everything Andrew just described about where we're at with retail media networks. [00:12:02] Jeff Roster: Well, it's, it's [00:12:03] really such a fascinating area typically. I mean, it's not a, an it spend area, so it's, it's something I haven't really studied and we knew about it. We, you know, the Walmart radio network we've always talked about.[00:12:14] And when I saw Andrew numbers, I I almost had almost fainted. I mean, it's just, you know, incredibly large and growing. So as somebody that understands how retailers operate, I mean, incremental revenue , is, dang good at revenue. And so I can see them clearly trying to not only just continue to expand this, but I think also add some power into their negotiations with, with their brands, people that wanna market with them.[00:12:40] I mean, we've always talked about slotting fees. Now we have, media advertising fees. So somebody that's always championing the innovation. I love seeing it. I love the experimentation. I love the, the growth, the, the exploitation of a new market, new opportunities.[00:12:52] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks. And Brandon one are your thoughts.[00:12:54] Brandon Rael: Yeah, I think it's amazing to see the the vertical integration where the retailers and brands can controlled the experience , and the media and the marketing. So it's they're controlling, what's communicated their customers and what's proprietary to them. So this is another channel, another opportunity, like to where there can be revenue growth and less dependency on third party media companies.[00:13:13] So I think it's a fascinating development [00:13:14] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think that's a really good, point's just really about them managing their own proprietary content and, and that distribution I think it's, it's gonna be interesting to see how the third party ad networks adjust over the next few years. [00:13:28] Jeff Roster: So Andrew, could I ask a question to better understand the numbers?[00:13:32] Andrew Lipsman: Absolutely. [00:13:32] Jeff Roster: So really before Ricardo and Casey started talking about this as a major trend. I mean, I, I knew it and I understood sort of what it was. I just always assumed what we were talking about or just the Walmart radio network, just music and ads playing inside their physical stores. Certainly high value for, for them.[00:13:50] And then all of a sudden, now we're talking about selling ads. Could you maybe just unpack what it means, or an example of where these dollars are coming from who's who's paying and who's receiving those dollars. [00:14:00] Advertising Spend vs Retail Media[00:14:00] Andrew Lipsman: Sure. So let me start by just kind of defining the space. So the, the, the vast majority of the numbers I referenced.[00:14:07] Almost about 75% of it actually is Amazon like sponsored product ads on Amazon. When you search on e-commerce sites, Walmart, eBay, Instacart, all of those players are driving the bulk of the market. The in-store media that you're speaking to is, is frankly a pretty modest sliver piece. That said, I think it's going to be transformative.[00:14:32] I think you're gonna see all sorts of digital media entering the stores. And there's a lot of innovation that's gonna happen in both digital you know, display, video and audio. So it's all of that. Where are the budgets coming from? So it's, I would say, a big thing that spurred the growth of this market in the last two years was the pandemic and obviously the, the boom and e-commerce, and those ad dollars started to follow commerce dollars.[00:14:54] You know, obviously Amazon was a big part of drawing those dollars online. So those dollars largely were incremental budgets. There's a lot of incremental budget during the pandemic as you know, T and E budgets were held back. So there, a lot of that got poured into advertising. Obviously consumer demand came back, so everybody wanted to spend ads into that.[00:15:17] But the big question really is as the market rationalizes, the advertising market rationalize, where do the budgets in the future come from when it's not gonna be so heavily dependent on incremental dollars? There it's, there are a few places. I mean, there's really three. So the first one is other digital ad spend Facebook and Google.[00:15:37] And I would say right now Google's holding up pretty well amid the deprecation of third party, identifiers Facebook, not so much. So you will start to see some budgets shift. Away from Facebook and in the direction of retail media. There's not a ton of overlap though in the specific types of advertisers and the types of advertising today.[00:15:56] So it's not kind of a, a direct line between one and the other. The next big bucket of ad spend that it will pull from his TV. These TV dollars have just been sitting there for years and years. Viewership continues to decline and those dollars don't have anywhere better to go. Now that said those TV dollars still wanna chase TV like inventory, they want video.[00:16:17] So the, the opportunity for retail media is either in store video, or I mentioned connected TV. Like Amazon is, is powering more and more of that. You're gonna see a lot of those TV dollars go into those formats. And the last one that if, if you're coming from, physical retail world is shopper and trade dollars huge, huge budgets starting to shift.[00:16:38] We saw a big pronounced shift from between 2020 and 2021 from those budgets specifically. There's a lot more to come. Now, the interesting aspect of that is that the brands will pull from shopper and trade marketing and put it into retail media. But retailers don't necessarily want that because it's just, you know, taking out one of their pockets and putting it in another.[00:17:00] So the brands in many, in most cases would much prefer that those dollars come from the other buckets that I mentioned, basically Facebook and TV. [00:17:08] Casey Golden: I think it's really interesting the opportunity here we have to essentially hold those retailers accountable for the distribution of the funds. When I was at Ralph, I would negotiate the margin agreements as well as a bucket of ad spend for our brand.[00:17:26] And I would just blindly write a check. I wouldn't get any KPIs back. I wasn't deploying it to a specific medium or. A specific location necessarily. We just had to blindly write a check to say here's a few million dollars for ad spend for you. Great. So I think that it really just empowers a lot of the brands to be able to hold accountability to the retail media networks.[00:17:50] If they're, they're gonna start doing that. I think it's a win-win for both sides. A lot of companies have been doing it without any insights in return. [00:17:58] Ricardo Belmar: And Andrew question for you on, on Casey's point here, I mean, are, are the metrics there? What are you finding brands are, let's say pleased with the kind of reporting they get on the, the performance of their dollars on these retail media networks, or are they struggling to find the ROI and the return on ad spend.[00:18:14] Andrew Lipsman: No, they're, they're really not struggling. I can talk, there is a little bit of friction that I can mention in a moment, but let me talk about the, the bigger picture first here. Casey's point is right. They were spending these dollars anyway but there wasn't accountability. My, my thesis before this, this space exploded a few years ago, I actually wrote my first report on retail media networks in 2019, when this was bar barely a blip on people's radar.[00:18:37] And my thesis was essentially that measurement makes markets, especially digital advertising markets. If you think about digital ad dollars that got pulled online in the early days, it was Google because people could see that closed loop on performance. You put, you know, dollars into Google. You could see that you got a, a dollar 25 out.[00:18:56] Then the social era happened and Facebook built an amazing apparatus of targeting and measurement. And when you just see, and when brands large and small, see that you put dollars in and you get more dollars out. They keep pushing spend in that direction. So it was it's kind of obvious or, or, or that we would see this parallel in retail media because it links so directly to e-commerce and that measurement is gonna move those budgets and, and certainly brands like accountability.[00:19:25] Now I mentioned a, a couple minutes ago that retailers may not necessarily like the fact that if it's just pulling from shopper and trade spend, it's not necessarily a net benefit for them. But in some sense, it is if those dollars are moving from not being accountable to accountable because of how that can unlock incremental dollars.[00:19:44] Right. I, I mean that, that is what's gonna fuel the biggest portion of this growth going forward still. Maybe not quite as much as it did here as, as it's rationalized, but there's still a lot of incremental spend. That's gonna come into digital advertising over the years and it will disproportionately move into retail media for, for exactly those reasons.[00:20:03] As far as the, the friction points, what you hear is that the, the ROAS right, the first metric that everyone looks at return on ad spend for Amazon in particular, it's, it's coming down as ad prices go up. But it's still proving really strong. And if you just cross compare it to other digital advertising channels, it still looks better than, than most of them.[00:20:22] I think the friction that's happening is with so many networks and with Amazon as the default buy starting to see that return on ad spend going down. I think there's a lot more questioning of how do I allocate my budgets within and across different retail media networks. So, so there is some handwringing going on and trying to figure out where is the best place to allocate that next dollar.[00:20:43] But broadly speaking, I think brands feel really good about putting their, their dollars into the bucket of retail media. And they're pretty happy with networks across the board and the metrics that they're getting.[00:20:55] Ricardo Belmar: One thing I wonder a lot about this, is there a opportunity for agencies that manage ad spend for brands as they interact with more and more of these retail media networks to help them with that allocation? Is, is that helping on the agency side or is it more, more of an indifferent kind of change. [00:21:12] Andrew Lipsman: You know, agencies are getting really involved and they have to be because th this is in, in our research and other, other third party research has, has shown similar things. Brands can only manage so many platforms, right? They're already managing a bunch of different digital advertising platforms outside of retail media.[00:21:27] And then now they have to go into new walled gardens and try and understand the idiosyncrasies of each one of those. And most of them are basically saying I can put my dollars in two to three retail media networks, and, and then it gets too hard. I'm spread too thin. So that's where agencies can help them spread it a little bit further into four or five, six different networks. But yeah, I think they need that, that handholding, if they're gonna be able to allocate it most appropriately.[00:21:54] Ricardo Belmar: So, as we mentioned earlier, that we've seen so many additional networks pop up every week. I'm curious if you, are you keeping track of how many of these and I'll use the word official? Maybe there's such a thing as an unofficial retail media network, but are you tracking how many there are to date?[00:22:09] Andrew Lipsman: Loosely. I, I would say if, if you asked me to, to write down as many as I could, I could knock out a fair amount of them. It's it's definitely dozens and dozens. There's, there's probably not really room for all of them. So I, I think the space is getting crowded now, in some sense, there's surprisingly more space than you would imagine because you have kind of the networks that cut across a lot of categories, thinking Amazon, Walmart, target Costco, a few of those ones.[00:22:33] But then you have some category specific ones that are just highly, highly relevant to their categories that a best buy or a home Depot. So they have really viable, healthy, strong networks for their advertisers. It's it's, once you get out of that kind of category leadership position, you see the second and third players within a category, trying to start a network where you start to question the, the opportunity.[00:22:55] I will say for everyone, if they have enough traffic on their sites and apps, there's kind of the low hanging fruit of just monetizing that search. And you can partner, with some platform partners the Criteo's and Citrus ads of the world to, to do the basic monetization that would be kind of low lift.[00:23:10] I don't know if it's gonna add up to a lot, but I, if it's minimal effort and you can get something out of it, It may be very well be worth it for all these networks. I just don't think most of them will kind of ultimately emerge as having this more, walled garden status, where people are coming in, hands on keyboard, analyzing the data, doing different types of ad buys beyond just basic sponsored product listings.[00:23:35] One RMN To Rule Them All?[00:23:35] Jeff Roster: Well, Andrew, if, there's 600 tier one retailers, which , by my definition is greater than a billion dollars in revenue. And if we're assuming e-com is anywhere from, 10 to 20% of those that you know, that revenue there's a fair amount of traffic in all those websites. Wouldn't each one of those, players be wouldn't it be worth them to have some kind of a, network set up? If they have enough traffic, it's gotta, they obviously have to have traffic, but if they do?[00:23:59] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. Like I said, if, if it, if it's minimal investment and you can get something out of it, I just think most should not expect it to add up to a whole lot. So you mentioned, how would you say 600? [00:24:10] Jeff Roster: Well, it's between four to 600 retail, north American retailers that are graded a billion dollars in revenue.[00:24:15] Andrew Lipsman: So I, I shared data that said it's about a 40 billion dollar market this year, next year, 50 billion. If you have a half, a percentage point of that market, that's 500 million in I'm sorry, if you have a full percentage point, that's 500 million in revenue. Not that many are gonna get to a full percentage point of that market. If your name isn't Amazon. It's a small handful. So let's say 0.1% of the market. Now you're talking about 50 million in revenue. If you're a billion dollar company is 50 billion in revenue, a big deal. [00:24:45] Jeff Roster: It's not moving though. It depends on if it's driving value to what you're trying to accomplish. And I guess that may be where, where we get into the definition of what we're, what we're actually doing.[00:24:55] If we're just selling ads, it's probably not, but if we're somehow supporting the brand and I don't know, you know, all the good stuff may, maybe so I don't know. [00:25:03] Andrew Lipsman: Right. I, if you're, if you're able to more deeply engage your, brand partners within retail physical retail, I mean, I think this is where it starts to get more interesting is when you start to look at it in an omnichannel basis and think about the in-store impact.[00:25:16] Yes. That, that can certainly help there. And then the other thing I would say is, traffic for, online e-commerce is what you need in order to have some sort of a viable business here. Most of these retailers have way, way, way more foot traffic than they do online traffic. And if you start to think about that in-store traffic as the audience the, the calculation can change for a lot of these companies.[00:25:42] I mean, if you think, a CVS or a Walgreens, right, they may have 10 or 20 million, 30 million visitors online in a given month. They could have well over a hundred million in stores in a given month. So there are many examples where, where that in-store traffic is multiples higher than than that online traffic.[00:25:59] And, and Jeff and Andrew is all great points knowing that the customer journey is so fragmented. And, and so, so that they're disparate between digital, physical channels. Now it's, it's almost saying it's intuitive people will actually go by default code to Amazon for the search results. So it's the first thing that comes up when you Google something.[00:26:16] Brandon Rael: Amazon certainly has a foothold and it, the dominant leader in this, retail media, you know, what can a mid-level retail expect if they, when they, the foray try to compete with an Amazon or Walmart or, or target hurry as well, established in dominant? What, what can they do to branching themselves?[00:26:31] Is it something, some other methods or storytelling or authentic way of reaching customers that these larger brand are doing? [00:26:38] Andrew Lipsman: I don't think anyone's gonna be particularly successful. If Amazon is the bar, Amazon's got 75 plus percent of the market. And as the market grows, they're gonna maintain mostly that percentage going forward for at least the next several years. They're innovating faster than anyone else. They've got bigger opportunities in front of them. I mentioned connected TV. They're just getting started there. They've got NFL Thursday night football, exclusive rights. They're building out their footprint of Amazon fresh stores. I mean, that, that is the single biggest thing that nobody's paying attention to with Amazon's advertising ambitions, cuz they're getting all this first party data on what people are buying in stores using that to target ads through any platform.[00:27:18] And then they can measure the impact of those ads on on sales. Do people buy more of that once it's in store? Now Amazon is limited by their footprint in physical retail today, but they'll build it out to the critical mass needed to power that full closed loop. So I don't think anybody can really compete with Amazon.[00:27:35] The question is can they build a big enough business that it starts to make a real difference to their financial prospects? And I think the answer is a resounding yes, for a few key players. And I think for most of the rest, the mid tail and the long tail, I would say probably barely worth their effort, but still, maybe worth their effort.[00:27:53] But I think everybody's really chasing the dream of what Amazon has, which is reasonable, incremental revenue, which for Amazon is like, I don't know, five to 7% on their top line. But it, you know, crazy high margins. [00:28:04] Brandon Rael: Yeah. I think it's a losing some game to even think of competing directly with Amazon.[00:28:08] Having, you have to find a way or niche that's not dominated by that, presence. Yeah, that's a great point. There's no reason to probably go head to head with these, these goliaths. [00:28:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And at the end of the day, right. They're not really in competition or are they, but I mean, I suppose if we're particularly talking about you know, as Brandon mentioned earlier, if you're like a midsize or maybe even a specialty retailer, your target isn't really to compete with Amazon's media network, is it?[00:28:31] Andrew Lipsman: No, I, I think that what you wanna do is, is court more brand dollars. And, and as I mentioned, they're gonna come from several different places. The question is, how can you do that effectively? You have to have a value proposition that's really strong. If you're a category leader like a home Depot or a best buy, right.[00:28:48] You know, you're already a destination for people who are in market for those categories. There's also, you know, different dynamics category by category where you could do something kind of interesting. The one that I'm looking at right now is so like Ulta was a recent one that you mentioned they got into the market, right?[00:29:05] Beauty is, is kind of interesting because there's the potential to layer in product sampling in that category as part of the ad network buy. So not only can you, have advertising across different touchpoints along the path to purchase, but you could also then introduce that user to a free sample of some product and then see what the purchase patterns are like after that trial.[00:29:29] And there's potentially a lot of value in that. I think product sampling is something you haven't heard a lot about in the space. Instacart and go puff have talked about it the most to this point in time, Amazon actually had a sampling initiative that they walked back a year or so ago. I think they'll probably reintroduce it at some point, but in, in consumer package goods and beauty, those are categories where I think product sampling can start to make things really interesting.[00:29:51] And we just haven't seen that come into play in any meaningful way yet. [00:29:55] Ricardo Belmar: And as you say that, that really tells me that shouldn't we see more of this in grocery. So I know Kroger, has a pretty successful media network today. And Instacart obviously in that space, but would we expect then that just about all of the large groceries should be doing this if they're not already?[00:30:11] Andrew Lipsman: Absolutely. Absolutely. They should. Yeah, it's it, it's, it's a no brainer and to me, this is like the next frontier of advertising, right. We always think about how do you formulate that brand impression, but it it's never coupled with then the product experience on the back end, right.[00:30:25] Sampling exists, but it's completely isolated. And it's from a promotions budget or it's off to the side and there's rarely if ever a link between the person who is receiving the brand messages and also then experiencing the product. I think this could be transformative and anybody who's into marketing analytics, I think would just salivate it at getting that data back to understand right.[00:30:46] How to optimize not just, trial and adoption, but lifetime value around brand purchase. [00:30:52] Ricardo Belmar: and I think what I'm really hearing is, the key here as this goes forward and grows as a medium, is the I'll use the word bundling of multiple mediums, if you will. It's not just about if I'm not Amazon, I'm not just trying to sell ad units on my e-commerce marketplace.[00:31:07] It's really more about how am I combining this with physical placements in store or, or anywhere else. It's really the, the advertising analogy to an omnichannel experience, right. For, for the brand. It's how do I, as the retailer bring the brand in, in multiple places, bundled and wrapping it around that overall shopping journey using all of these ad units, right?[00:31:27] Andrew Lipsman: Yep. From the furthest up the funnel, like TV or connected TV,[00:31:32] Ricardo Belmar: right. [00:31:32] Andrew Lipsman: Display and video online working its way down the funnel to that search or if you're in a physical store at, at the shelf. [00:31:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, coming back to how, how is a retailer gonna rate this a successful attempt, if you will, at a retail media network, they can't all be Amazon. They can't all be Walmart nor nor do they need to necessarily aspire to be that successful with, with their retail media network. What, what's good enough if you will, to, to kind of declare success.[00:32:00] Andrew Lipsman: Good enough. I, for most, I would say is don't sink a ton of investment and think that you can do it by yourself. partner, you know, pay, pay to partner, structure the deal in a way that makes sense where you're not paying through the nose just to get something basic off the ground. In most cases, there's, there's not gonna be the density of advertiser interest to make it really worthwhile.[00:32:23] You're just competing for too much attention. So as long as you can minimize your investment and take whatever happens from preexisting traffic as gravy. I think that's gonna be successful because it, you know, we'll move the needle. As I said, a little bit on revenue, but actually can, can make some meaningful and noticeable improvements on the bottom line.[00:32:43] I mentioned Amazon, obviously not everyone's Amazon, but you know, Walmart has started to see at least in the end of 2021, they were starting to see some margin expansion that they were attributing to advertising as that ad business finally started to scale for them. [00:32:56] The Consumer Perspective[00:32:56] Ricardo Belmar: So let's kind of move a little bit and look at this from the consumer's perspective, because one, one of the things, if there is a complaint or negative that I I've seen plenty of folks writing about, and we can use Amazon as the example , at what point is too many ads, just too many ads from the consumer's point of view, especially if we're talking about, and this maybe is more applicable of an argument in the digital space when we're looking at product search results. At what point is too many ads, just, just ruining the experience and hindering the shopping journey versus helping it from the consumer's perspective.[00:33:27] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. I mean, this is a huge issue that is not talked about nearly enough. Advertising in retail environments can create a customer experience, problem, both online and in store. Now what's interesting is Amazon, the ad loads on Amazon because there's so much more density of, of a advertisers on there is way higher than everyone else.[00:33:48] I think on first page sponsored impressions is about eight to nine for Amazon. And you know, the next biggest players are between two and four at best. So there's a lot of ads. If, if you're doing searches for a lot of products in Amazon these days here, you'll see a lot of ads. What's interesting is consumers seem to be tolerating them pretty well.[00:34:07] We did research. One of the things Amazon, I think has done very well is they have improved their advertising relevance. So as long as you're putting relevant ads in front of people, it's not taking them away from what they were searching for in the first place. I think that it's gonna be well tolerated. That said I've personally had experiences searching on Amazon where using specific terms, I've gotten bad ad impressions that just did not meet the criteria I was looking for at all. And did take me further from the purchase. So it does happen. I think there's an opportunity now, as Amazon has gotten very crowded, there's higher and growing return on ad spend on other networks.[00:34:41] So this is now I, I look at this period of time as like the chance for the second wave, the second tier of retail media networks to really flourish. They've got competitive differentiation against Amazon to start to court those budgets. So I think we're in this, this phase where we are gonna start to see a lot more flowers bloom in a meaningful way.[00:35:02] Ricardo Belmar: And are there particular retail segments that you think are there are less tapped today? And one, one in particular that I, I kinda keep coming back to in my head is what about, where are luxury brands fitting into this? Is there a luxury retailer that can leverage this to become more successful that we haven't seen yet?[00:35:21] And then maybe the second part to this is if there's a category or group of retailers that maybe can use this in a, in a way to produce a better experience, maybe it's department stores, because they're kind of like that physical marketplace as it is today, but as a segment, right, let's face it.[00:35:36] They're, they're kind of floundering. But my understanding for example, is that Macy's has been seeing some success with their retail media network. So you know, should we expect that department stores will see a lot of success with this? [00:35:46] Andrew Lipsman: I, I think you hit the nail on the head with department stores as a big opportunity and Macy's is doing a good job outta the gate.[00:35:52] Nordstrom getting into the space. It makes a lot of sense there because you have categories with, healthier margins in general, you've got scale. You've got enough traffic. So I, I do think that application will work well. The luxury one depends how you define luxury, but I'll provide kind of an argument for and against the argument for is.[00:36:11] Very high margins in luxury. So this is where ads can be really valuable. And you've got more margin for error. At the same time, luxury is the category where you least want to be interruptive of the, consumer experience. I don't know that luxury shoppers are gonna enjoy being barraged with overly promotional, advertising, driven things.[00:36:31] They like, brand experience. So if you can use data from retail media to, to power, really high quality brand advertising, those applications may work really well. But beyond that, I just, you know, I can't think of like luxury and, and marketplace offerings. Like one is more commodity, one is more premium and I just don't know how well they intersect in this application.[00:36:53] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, I know Farfetch has been. Obviously takes dollars for ad spend from the brands. But they've also been reselling their first party, the brand's first party or second party data back to them. So a brand can buy their customer data from Farfetch, [00:37:10] Andrew Lipsman: which is interesting, cuz that's one of the things because luxury has always been so analog.[00:37:15] Right. I mean they were the last ones to, to have e-commerce sites at all, a [00:37:18] Casey Golden: amount of data on their own customers and they've been around the longest . [00:37:22] Andrew Lipsman: Yep. Yeah. Right. So that, that's actually an interesting way to kind of make it work is yes. They, they, they're sitting there with absolutely no first party data and this is a way to get access to it.[00:37:32] Audience Q&A[00:37:32] Ricardo Belmar: Hey, well this is probably a good time for me to let everyone in the audience know if you've got any questions for any, any of us up here on the stage. Now's a good time to raise your hand and we'll bring you up on stage. Yeah. And Cynthia, welcome to the stage. [00:37:44] Cynthia Hollen: Hey everybody. [00:37:45] Welcome back. [00:37:47] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you.[00:37:48] Cynthia Hollen: Hey, I have a question on retail media network that I I think you guys can best answer, which is that I'm trying to differentiate between the retail media networks that we've had for a hundred years where we've paid extra to have a different position on a shelf or paid for an end cap or cetera, cetera, et cetera, paid for a, a co-op advertising in the newspaper or something.[00:38:15] How are retailers thinking differently about that spend and why is it strategically different?[00:38:22] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah, I mean, the rise of retail media, as we talk about it today really is about digital coming from the vantage point of digital. So I think what what's kind of happened is digital budgets. E-commerce budgets started moving towards its opportunity and it wasn't necessarily the same decision makers.[00:38:40] Then as this opportunity started to mesh more in, omnichannel as, as, as retailers started to become more omnichannel in their thinking. I think that's why it created all these organizational issues and starting to wrestle over and rationalize budgets. I, I mean, I don't know that they're, that they are doing it in any uniform way or that there's consistency.[00:39:03] I think it's actually been a really messy process from everything I've heard inside of companies. And it isn't just the like migration of preexisting retail media that as you said, has been around for a long time and starting to move that into digital. It, it it's been a very indirect path.[00:39:18] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think I, I would come back to what we were talking earlier, right? It's this ability to bundle in so many different channels and, and mediums right into one, one collective spend that the retailer offers to the brand. I, I kind of see that as being the, I'll use the word innovation. I don't know if Jeff May argue with me on using that term in this case, but I'm gonna call it the innovation in, in all of this is that sure.[00:39:39] We've had different ways to have that advertising relationship between retail and brand before, but I think it's, it's just the ability to combine into so many different mediums and offer a more data around the, the consumer at the same time.[00:39:50] Do we answer your question, Cynthia? Or are we not getting to it?[00:39:52] Cynthia Hollen: No. I, I think that you're, you're definitely talking about both or organizationally and strategically inside the corporations it's different. And also that it allows for, that allows for different kinds of combinations or a different way of looking at it. I'm not sure that from the consumer standpoint, when we argue about is when is advertising going to be too much, if the consumer wasn't already being hit with, with all kinds of subtle and not subtle promotions in store, and if they're necessarily sensing the difference, except that they had kind of a refuge in digital for 10 years away from the barrage of, of retail media in store.[00:40:37] And now it's coming back to digital. So on the consumer side, I, I wonder if the consumer sees it as differently as we see it. [00:40:47] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think that's kind of what we were starting to get at to earlier. And that, at what point is it just too much from the consumer's point of view? I think you're right. That on the digital side, consumers probably didn't notice at first that they were getting more and more ads incrementally in different places.[00:41:02] I think, you know, there was an understanding and when I did that Google search, yeah. It was going to get some ad placement at the top of my search results page. And then when I got to an e-commerce site, I think everyone assumed for a long while that the search I was getting was just the results of the search, right.[00:41:15] Based on the retailer having indexed the product catalog. But then we started to see more and more ad placement by Amazon, and then other retailers saw that and all kind of snowballed into where we're at today. But it's a great question. I, I do ask that a lot is that what's too much.[00:41:29] When does it become too many ads? And maybe the answer is a lot like what we've said in this room, in, in past sessions about integration of technology in general, in that shopping experience, that the more seamless and transparent you make it. So it's not quite in your face, the less noticed it will get that it is blatantly an advertisement, right to that consumer.[00:41:49] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. I think consumers are, are generally more tolerant of native ad units, which is what these are. The frog has been slowly boiling here and I, I think people tolerate it and have tolerated and will tolerate it. The question is what's that point at which they'll, finally, jump out. I frankly, am surprised with Amazon specifically, given what the ad loads are like today that all the research I've seen says that consumers don't have a problem with it, or minimally have a problem with it.[00:42:17] So that suggests it's, they're highly tolerant of it. They, they expect it. They've gotten used to it. I mean, go do a Google search today. I mean, it's unbelievable from my standpoint, when you see how many ads you have to scroll through just to get to a basic search result now.[00:42:33] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, absolutely.[00:42:34] Andrew Lipsman: It's just, this is what's been happening over the years.[00:42:36] So in context that, searching on Amazon probably doesn't seem any worse. Like I said, though, that the relevance is really what matters. Consumers don't care if somebody paid to put a product listing in front of you, if it's the product listing that warrants being in front of you, based on what you're searching for, if it's totally off base that's when consumers really get annoyed.[00:42:57] Casey Golden: Andrew. What are your thoughts on, you know, as we're talking about, when is enough, enough, or too much, too much, a lot of TV shows or stations, you can go ahead and pay for an episode without ads. Do you think that eCommerce will kind of move potentially to have part of that model where you'll pay for your Google engine or you'll pay for shopping on a brand like Sans ad?[00:43:27] Andrew Lipsman: There's always the possibility of something like that being introduced and it will always be a very, very tiny fragment. do that. Right. Like you can do that on Twitter today. I think right. You actually have an ad free experience there now. [00:43:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. With Twitter blue, [00:43:42] Andrew Lipsman: Twitter blue. Like I,[00:43:43] Casey Golden: I pay for Twitter, [00:43:44] Andrew Lipsman: not a whole lot of uptake on, on that offering.[00:43:47] Casey Golden: Yeah. It's interesting. [00:43:48] Brandon Rael: Great question, Casey. At what point does it come overwhelming? So I'm curious, what's your sense, Andrew, and where things is going from a social selling perspective like Instagram and TikTok other platforms.[00:43:57] Andrew Lipsman: Well, so I I'm, I'm comparing ads on entertainment experiences versus a shopping experience. I will say maybe I'm speaking for myself, but I think this is maybe broadly true be because shopping is often a more utilitarian experience. You're people don't have as much of a problem. It's already a commercial engagement.[00:44:15] People probably have less issue with brand impressions. Whereas with media, we're accustomed to advertising around it, but it's interrupted to the content experience. So I just don't think that the, content experience for retail is as interruptible. Which is why ultimately like I said, I, I think consumers are tolerating these ads and maybe there's a future where it gets to a point where they've had enough, but I think it's pretty far out into the future.[00:44:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think it's probably telling that Netflix is considering adding a lower ad based tier. [00:44:44] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah.[00:44:45] RMN vs Livestreaming vs Metaverse[00:44:45] Ricardo Belmar: One question I've been saving here towards the end that I wanna go around the whole group of speakers. Let's do this in like a rapid fire response. I wanna know what everyone thinks of intersection between retail media networks and live streaming and the metaverse. Andrew, let's start with you. I'm curious what you're thinking. [00:45:01] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. So I'm more skeptical on these trends, I think, than most people. Live streaming, I just don't think the US at least is anywhere close to what China is. So where live streaming is relevant on some sites you've seen Amazon live and some other instances yes, it's natural that advertising may be sprinkled into that.[00:45:20] I don't think it's gonna be a key driver of, of those retail media engagements. Metaverse. I don't know. I just feel like this is so far out into the future and I actually don't think it's gonna be the next big platform at all. I think mobile is the next big platform. And I say that as a joke, I mean, I think mobile isn't going anywhere.[00:45:37] And if the metaverse gets enough adoption and people spend enough time and becomes an advertising paradigm, then sure. Retail media will, will be a part of that. I don't expect us to ever get there. I tend to think of the metaverse as really just the extension of gaming. So why aren't we talking about in-game advertising more?[00:45:55] that's [00:45:56] Ricardo Belmar: well, that's a good point. That's a good point. [00:45:57] Andrew Lipsman: Like that's that engagement's there today and there's been some innovation, Ricardo, you're Microsoft, you know, one of the best places to do it. I'm, I'm bullish on the opportunity for Microsoft in in-game advertising, but to me, right? Like let's, let's figure that out and, and see that ramp before we start talking about metaverse advertising. [00:46:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think to, to your point, we've, we've seen recent announcements of more and more of that in game advertising. It seems like every week I see another major brand announcing that they're opening up a, storefront in Roblox.[00:46:26] Andrew Lipsman: yeah. And that's real today. Like that's where our, [00:46:28] Ricardo Belmar: and that's happening today. No, that's a great point. Yeah. Great point, Jeff. What's your take. [00:46:32] Jeff Roster: So live streaming is really fascinating. Couldn't spell it about what a year ago. And since then really, spent a lot of time looking at what's happened in AsiaPac have done one interview with it and I have another one that's just gonna be insane.[00:46:44] We are starting to see some very legit money being put from the VC community into efforts here in the us and north America. So is that gonna explode, you know, the next 18 months? No, but I, I think in three to five year increments, so I'm very, very bullish on north America and live streaming. As an event, I think that content will, that that is generated in livestream and will also become video assets that will be deployed all across digital signage and stores and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.[00:47:10] So we'll just get into this giant circle. So, I don't know if that turns into ad revenue, but it is going to be a major, major, major focus probably out in the next two years. The metaverse, I'm a little more bullish. If you're talking in, the three to five year window. You know, I'm a pilot, I'm multi engine pilot.[00:47:24] I've used augmented reality for, for, for 20 years. There's nothing new about that. It's just, will it become viable? I have certain dietary requirements for my wife and I would love to use augmented reality to, to see what ingredients are appropriate and what aren't, that's kind of a metaverse scenario.[00:47:40] So used correctly I'm super bullish on that. And I could validate that with a bunch of IT or a bunch of VC spend that direction, but again, that's a five year window that I'm talking about. [00:47:49] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. Okay. Casey, what's your thought. [00:47:51] Casey Golden: Live streaming and the metaverse. I'm obviously pro metaverse just for culture change for brands to be more experiential and learn how to fail.[00:48:02] And I think it's gonna be a great place for product discovery and brand discovery for engagement. That's a little bit more meaningful than a live stream, which is one to many. I'm a big fan of two way conversations and two way engagement versus one. But I think there's a heavy level of consumer education or consumer attention span that it takes to stop multitasking, to pay attention to a live stream or join the metaverse.[00:48:29] So I think it, the consumer adoption and their bandwidth and attention span will depict a lot of it on how fast or what is adopted. [00:48:37] Ricardo Belmar: That's a good point. Brendan, what are your thoughts? [00:48:39] Brandon Rael: Yes. So I'm in agreement with, Jeff and, and Casey.[00:48:41] I, I think we're looking at a long term window of opportunity with the VC spending. I also think in terms of the target audience, you know, we're seeing all the strides that the luxury brands are made, especially Louis Vitton and Gucci, and now Nike and especially space in the metaverse. So there's a significant growth opportunity in revenue opportunity, but I think the target customers using that, virtual reality world, it already exists. You know, it's our, it's the gen Z or gen alpha whatever's coming next. That's gonna be that target customer who is already in that environment and already live in, in those worlds. [00:49:12] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. And just to close that thought out, I'm somewhere , in the middle, but as far as live streaming, I do think that like, Jeff and Casey, and Brandon I guess I am a little more bullish on that one.[00:49:22] It may not be in the next year, but certainly with, I think Jeff, you said within the next, maybe one to two years or something like that, but ultimately it's just gonna become yet another sales channel and it's one that everyone's gonna take advantage of and have in their collection of sales channels.[00:49:36] So I think it has a place. Metaverse I think is just earlier in that adoption curve.[00:49:40] We're still in the experimentation phase. I think that we'll see more and more brands do it. I think Andrew, I think you're spot on, on your comment about gaming, advertising and product placement. We're gonna see a lot more of that before we see more consumer adoption and relevance in what I'll call the mainstream metaverse that everyone wants to hype up these days.[00:49:58] So that will come first cuz it's already here. It's happening. That's gonna be the stepping stone for consumers to a broader metaverse through the, through the gaming. [00:50:06] Andrew Lipsman: Can I just make one final point here? By the way, I'm, fine swimming against the grain on, both of these behaviors. One of the reasons I'm a little bit more measured or skeptical on them is because they both require immersive engagement. [00:50:18] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm okay. [00:50:19] Andrew Lipsman: Right. That there there's more effort involved. Now, if you can get over that hurdle on immersive engagement on live streaming, you've got something, cuz somebody's already in, in a commercial instance, we've seen it happen in Asia.[00:50:30] We just haven't seen it move over here. That's one that I feel like I'm happy to be wrong about that I just, I haven't seen the movement on the consumer here yet. The metaverse though. I will say this all major advertising mediums, the biggest ones, TV, radio, and social media depend on ambient or passive engagement.[00:50:50] That's where you rack up time spent. Time spent is, is what drives major brand advertising. I can't ever see a point where everybody is going into VR worlds. And spend where you'll have a segment of, of the audience. Like you have gamers today. And, and some people may spend quite a lot of time, but

EP296 - Guardian Baseball Co-Founder Matt Kubancik  Episode 296 is an interview with Matt Kubancik (@mattkubancik), CEO and Co-Founder of Guardian Baseball. Matt is a serial e-commerce entrepreneur who was the founder of Street Moda, Co-Founder of SKU Vault, and most recently Co-Founder and CEO of Guardian Baseball. Mark is an experienced Marketplace seller, and his current business Guardian Baseball is a hybrid seller selling both wholesale and owned brands direct to consumer from a Shopify site, and via multiple marketplaces including Amazon. Guardian Baseball is an early adaptor of Buy with Prime, and shares in the interview, that they would migrate off Shopify if necessarily to keep using Buy with Prime. He also discusses a number of the current limitations with the Buy With Prime offering. Episode 296 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday September 23, 2022. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 296 being recorded on Friday August 23rd 2022 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners today we have a fun interview this is kind of a both a TBT a throwback for me and then also modern discussion around by with Prime but to set it up we are very excited to welcome mat kubancik to the show welcome mat. Matt: [1:00] Thanks Scott and Jason have my own. Scot: [1:02] Matt what's your what's your current title you have you have 50 things you're always doing so I never know what to say other than. Matt: [1:08] Always doing but Maine. Scot: [1:10] Entrepreneur genius. Matt: [1:11] Yeah sometimes sometimes a genius sometimes but that's the life of an entrepreneur I co-founder and CEO of Guardian baseball.com or multi-channel hybrid direct to consumer and brand partner of you know some of the biggest. Brand names and Sporting Goods retailer so predominantly in the baseball and softball market and we're on Amazon Walmart eBay and on our Shopify site. And we were named the fastest growing e-commerce retailer by ink magazine in the Inc 5000 and number 180 overall this year. Jason: [1:48] Amazing that congratulations I definitely want to jump into it but before we do you know our listeners always like to get a little bit of a gist of our guests background and so I'm imagining you you went to college and got a degree in baseball e-commerce is that how you started. Matt: [2:05] No not at all actually spent six months in in college dropped out was one of the original I started selling on eBay 1999. Um during think my first year of high school sold baseball cards ironically and then. Started selling fashion and store stock Closeouts Retail Arbitrage early days of eBay and then when I was 18 years old. I met an executive that was retired from the Footwear industry and him and I started a company called Street motor together, and we were a early on 2000s multi-channel retailer and I met Scott through signing Channel advisor when I was 19 years old I remember signing my contract, verbally over the phone like a grain to the contract and then I went into school and said hey I'm going to withdraw after six months of Indiana University so. Dropped out and did 100 million over, 10 11 years mainly thanks to the a lot of connections Channel advisor helped me create you know Market places like Amazon eBay buy.com back in the day, a lot of the shopping channels like Shopzilla and sites like that and we exited that business in 2017. And been involved in e-commerce and various other companies and degrees. Jason: [3:30] That's an amazing story for a couple of reasons first of all I love everybody that that helps helps fun they're beginning through Retail Arbitrage have you seen the latest version of we Retail Arbitrage kind of making the rounds right now. Matt: [3:46] What is the what is the latest version of I probably have but I'm wondering what it would lose. Jason: [3:50] It's dudes buying Walmart frozen pizza and then selling it as a ghost Kitchen on doordash. Matt: [3:56] I love it yes I actually posted that somebody needs to hire that guy with the tick tock video yeah. Jason: [4:01] Yeah that that was amazing and then one thing that's that I found peculiar about your background is most people tell me they even back then Scott was too fancy to actually talk to customer so it's kind of impressive that you were able to meet Scott in person back then. Matt: [4:16] Yeah the I would think I was like 18 and I was a channel advisor conference and I had a beer in my hand and he walked up to me and I remember he was like are you are you 21 I was like I don't think so. Jason: [4:26] So it was mostly a liability concerns. Scot: [4:30] Yeah yeah Matt Matt's a brilliant marketer and he would bring these t-shirts to the shows he did he did Wingo as my homeboy and then was a twingo made Millions so those are some of the best best marketing gimmicks, and I will show up at the show and I was wearing this this t-shirt with a picture of Miss really weird. Jason: [4:49] I feel like it's even it's gotten increasingly true and more much more true in the last month that you could sell more of those t-shirts the Wingo made me Millions. Matt: [4:59] Yeah it was a it was a lot of fun so. Scot: [5:04] And then so then that was your primary thing so then you did you guys realize that you needed to build you look at all the software for shipping and inventory management and build your own and then you, tell the story of that. Matt: [5:19] Oh yeah so it was like 2012 or 2011 and kind of the only inventory platform out there other than like something on the level like sap Oracle custom build for like larger retailers or Manhattan, a red Prairie was what was it called Scott like Stone Edge or something what was it was on Old access bit database yeah and I remember, they actually got bought out by a former competitor of Channel advisor so and there were so many Channel advisor clients on there so we tried to launch that in our warehouse and my childhood friend and he says who got an engineering degree and eventually became the CEO of skew vault, tried to implement that and then him and a programmer who was programming a bunch of stuff Slava who's the co-founder skew vault try to implement that system and it just didn't work properly for us so they came back to me a few months later and they were like hey we're just going to build it and I was kind of like okay if you guys can really do that and you know it worked we built a skew Vault version 1 out of Street Motors warehouse and then eventually I help those guys kind of get the business off the ground. [6:25] Was original co-founder Andy just exited the business lat ironically a week before Channel advisor so, to a company out of the UK and you know still work with Andy on a daily basis and good friends so really proud of those guys and yeah it was it was a great thing we did up having, thousands of customers and help them with their fulfillment needs and help a lot of the big direct to Consumer and Shabba fine Amazon retailers on a SAS, like platform manage their inventory and cycle counts and you know all that kind of stuff. Jason: [7:00] And so was q v predominantly like a order management system or I guess I always thought of it as kind of like a almost like a dim and a CMS and a way am I thinking of it wrong. Matt: [7:12] Predominately a warehouse management system you know we never we had a really good partnership with people like Channel advisor and, and other channel listing tools so Andy was always very adamant on not disrupting those Partnerships I think you saw a lot of, a lot of our competition would eventually move into the channel management and then disrupt those Partnerships so we always relied on and Scott was a huge part of that, and driving force and then Channel advisor folks were always a huge you know big partner of skew vaulting especially in the early days of really driving that home so we never really got into the listing. Pain management we really tried to rely on our. Excellent capability of functioning in the warehouse so providing quality control integrating with the shipping carriers like ship work shipstation. Companies like that and and then integrating with the channel Partners like a channel buzzer. And providing all the quality control Pick Pack you know scan in audits inventory sinking buffers all that type of normal WMS type of functions. Scot: [8:17] Cool so you you were a e-commerce entrepreneur so you've done that then you did software-as-a-service so you get the check that off the box and then I saw on LinkedIn you've also been working with a turbo host so that's actually getting into my world of cars now tell me tell me how you got into that one. Matt: [8:34] I just really like nice cars and you know I started renting them on Taro and I was down in Florida which is like a second home for me and I had one of my best friends move down there and from Louisville, and we just started buying cars it started with one so I didn't have to like rent Ontario anymore and then you know the turo market got really flooded so what I started to concentrate on was more mid-tier Exotics, so we bought cars like Porsches and Ferraris and then Terro raised there, they used to have a lower like coverage they would do like 150,000 and it was something that I was used to you know Scott on very well versed in the marketplaces I think if somebody looks at my. You know in between companies I've always consulted and I've always been brought in by big Brands to be on marketplaces Amazon eBay and how to really run and function those within a larger organization, so I really adapted well to the turo marketplace because I felt it was much like an eBay or an Amazon type of, mentality where they provide the customers you provide the inventory and then provide the service, and then you don't have to worry about all the legal jargon and a lot of the compliance and you know worrying about marketing spend, and Roi so you know we had three or four cars and and still working with my partner on that. Scot: [9:57] Cool it's a as I got into this Mobility space myself I was poking around it's like otter oh and then I saw the CEOs name is Andre Haddad and he's actually an eBay guy and it rang a bell and I had met him a couple times in eBay meetings so it's funny you've already kind of made that correlation there's a lot of, e-commerce people in the mobility world that I run across and then so my big question is if a Ferrari is a mid exotic for you what what's up there about already like Bugattis here like. Matt: [10:29] Like it in your old Ferrari California so it's something like a hundred and thirty thousand dollars and then we drop you know 20,000 into it to fix it up and it's running. You know we run it at like 750 to 1,000 a day where I would consider a more like. If you look at a competition like in Miami or Vegas they're generally running in the you know the Uris has or the Bugattis of the world so that would I would consider kind of the luxury like Newark here. Scot: [10:57] Got it where's and Lambo is kind of in the middle. Matt: [11:00] I would say Leo Lambo Huracan would be kind of be in the middle mid-tier luxury. Scot: [11:05] What's your daily driver their ass. Matt: [11:07] I have five kids now so it's a Ford Expedition in Louisville Kentucky but I have to I have two choices in Suburban or yeah there's no. Scot: [11:15] Low exotic low exotic yeah a lot of gold fish floating around in the car there I'm a that's our bread and butter here at spiffy is the five kids think you guys are Jim. Give them and give them lots of food to throw around back there. Matt: [11:33] Applesauce back and everything yeah I'm the Costco dead. Jason: [11:37] Spiffy spiffy charges extra for apple sauce stains just so you know. Side note I just got back from Vegas from grocery shop a grocery e-commerce show in the big news in Vegas is they just announced that formula one is coming to Las Vegas. Scot: [11:54] Yeah yeah that's gonna be awesome. Jason: [11:56] They're doing a track that's going to be on the Strip their clothes in the strip for a week it's going to that could be pretty cool. Matt: [12:03] Who's at that shop talk conference that they're involved in. Jason: [12:06] It's put on by the same people that started shop talk yes but it's more focused specifically on the like Grocery and Food Industries. So you've got all this Marketplace experience you got your fashion experience through shoot Street Mota. How'd you get there. Matt: [12:39] So I started the business with a friend of mine he owns the largest travel baseball organization in the state of Kentucky it's called The Wolves baseball organization he's around my age, Jewish kid from l.a. got recruited to play baseball in Kentucky so moved here were both only children both the same age both outside of Kentucky so we got along real well, he started training my kids he's really good with people really good people skills, really good with developing children and just teamwork and a lot of stuff and so we just started Guardian as a as honestly. It was supposed to be a lifestyle based business he was paying full retail from a local sporting goods store, for all his equipment and uniforms and I was this is when I was Consulting for the company that had bought Street mode and I was like hey, you know why don't we just go direct to the brands will sell some stuff on Amazon you know we'll have a little half a million dollar business. [13:35] And so we started working with like the wrongs and the Wilsons of the world and the Maru cheese and when I got into this business you know coming from the fashion business and when I consulted I consulted a lot of direct-to-consumer apparel Brands and launching them on. Amazon and helping with them their Logistics and health and beauty and those are very. Competitive Industries in the direct-to-consumer world right and they're very Advanced and a lot of their metrics and there's just heavy competition and there's a new direct-to-consumer player subscription boxes which is very competitive market and there's always something new. But in the Sporting Goods industry and you know Jason if you play baseball growing up is the same Brands like the same Louisville Sluggers Easton's. Of the world and you are having some direct-to-consumer. Brands that are kind of infiltrating the baseball and softball world but it's very much like an accessories like they might be a Brandon sunglasses or a bad brain and batting gloves but there's not really a big brand kind of doing it all, and there's almost no direct-to-consumer penetration so it's something that. [14:34] As we started evolving the business we started by buying just equipment then we would go to the brands and we started making our own equipment with them so we go to them and say hey. [14:44] You guys do black pink bags for girls that's really cool but like a lot of the girls are sick of black pink so we're going to make black Tiffany we're going to make black rose gold. How about we do these like new colorways kind of relating into the fashion business so you know I was still active in fashion and Consulting for and working with a lot of Brands like Puma, Steve Madden and Brands like that so I know kind of the colorways that are clicking and women's heels or Footwear and sneakers so I would and apparel and I would kind of put those over, and say okay maybe baseball and softball is a year or two behind so we kind of started doing that and that worked really well. And then we started producing our own cleats which are an Amazon bestseller so we're you know we out sell some of the biggest brands on the market came from Footwear so we started making kids cleats, our Guardian one of our Guardian kids please says over 6 700 reviews on Amazon it's one of the top sellers, we had inventory we have more inventory coming in so we just started started with cleats and then we started making sliding Nets bat bags. Um and then we released a baseball bat with a huge kind of direct-to-consumer startup brand that's taking over a lot of the market in the BB core which is high school and college is called stinger, bad company and we did a collab with them and it was called The Guardian bat by stainer and standards whole thing is basically the traditional direct to consumer. [16:07] Where they're you know the normal high school and college bats are costing three to five hundred dollars and they come in around 250 price point, 260 price point it's the same quality most of their sales are direct they do have a few retailers, and we came in and did a brand collaboration and we we had over 120,000 views 130,000 reviews on bat Bros which is the independent bat testing and they rated as a top five bat, and then when it came out for three or four months it was a top five bad on Amazon in terms of sales so. You know that's kind of what we're doing now and kind of evolving the business into more of a direct-to-consumer and making our own equipment and then working on with brand collaborations like a supreme would in the fashion business where, putting a guardian and going to a traditional brand and saying hey instead of just doing black and navy and red catching equipment let's do a kid's shark-tooth let's do a camouflage but like blue and green camo or something so we're kind of making it fun. And it's been good you know it's been a fun ride we're growing rapidly we, closing investment with Matt Joyce this year he came on as an owner so my business partners Evan I own the business along with a 14-year major Leaguer who just retired, and he was kind of a good Target for us we didn't want somebody that was just just going to sign a check like a really really big guy that was a Hall of Famer something and wasn't want to be active we wanted somebody that. [17:36] Was very entrepreneurial and Matt owns a line of gyms and Florida he does a bunch of real estate Investments and he's had kind of a blue-collar dad you know family raised him type of hard-working mentality and we wanted somebody like that. So he came on this year and we're really glad to have him and he's kind of helped line out a hole. Roster of athletes with us so we're very early on in The Cutting Edge of Ni El marketing and yeah so we're just kind of a cutting-edge retailer. Jason: [18:06] Interesting so a couple of quick questions jump to mind when you first got in the the baseball business, I would call that the sporting goods in general and I'm kind of assuming you'll correct me if I'm wrong baseball in particular is a little bit of a digital lagger right so, like you don't think of like Rowling and Wilson as kind of digital first companies. Matt: [18:31] No I would say the industry overall is is very traditional and they don't like a lot of change in the industry I think that's the baseball and softball equipment baseball in all I mean you see baseballs really losing out to Big sports like football and basketball and they're trying to figure out how do we become more engaged with the fan so I don't just think it's. Just necessary the equipment Brands I think it's overall as a sport but we definitely do see that in the baseball and softball equipment you know I think they don't really. They get they hand me these 500-page catalogs and there's 498 pages that are literally dedicated to male athlete ages 14 and above. And what they really forget and they do make equipment for him but it's not a focal point of their business and that's what Guardian kind of focuses on, is the softball Market is very underserved and then the youth market and if you think about the under 8 years old that's the most kids Everybody Plays little league right ever played buddy place, t-ball and coach pitch and then as you kind of Rise through the ranks then maybe you get more involved in swimming or maybe you get more involved in Lacrosse and that's your sport, or basketball or football and then you stop playing baseball so we are our cleats actually really Market to a 12 and under, and that's where really really kind of honing in the market and then the softball markets been huge you know two of our biggest influencers are Bella Dayton and Jasmine Perez chica they play for Arizona and Texas. [19:56] Their videos on Tik-Tok and Instagram we've done on marketing as and IL marketing have. Gotten hundreds of thousands of views and actually get more views than Major Leaguers we work with, and softball NCAA softball I think it was last 2021 surpassed college or viewership, for college men's baseball in the world series for the first time ever so college softball and softball in general is a very underserved Market by these Brands and it's something that, we're working with them on to develop more items and we're also working on ourselves of really kind of dressing that market and putting women at the Forefront. Jason: [20:33] Yeah that's super interesting I want to come back to the influencers but I'm just trying to make sure I understand so you started Guardian. In a lot of categories like a bunch of the aspirational Legacy Brands it's really hard to get a license to sell them right so you know. You do you want to start new footwear company you're not getting a Nike license you know it's really hard to get get a wholesale agreement with Oakley folks like that was it easy to get like Wilson in drawing to sell to you. Matt: [21:02] Yes it because of my business partners. The 14 travel teams he has the largest so those companies were already knocking down the door to be his uniform. Facility and and that sort of thing and at that time we started the business 45 years ago and like you said they're kind of behind the times of e-commerce so they hadn't started to clean up the marketplaces like a lot of the fashion brands or Electronics Brands had, on the Amazon and eBay world yet now they're starting to make a lot of those and they've kind of grandfathers as they in and putting those in those contracts. Where we've been able to do some special stuff like a lot of Brands we have you know brand registry with are able to come and do viral videos on the Amazon Marketplace and do a lot of things like that. Jason: [21:43] Yeah well you you anticipated my next question which is like it's often for those Brands controversial if they want to be on marketplaces and particularly on Amazon so with do I was that part of the discussion where they already on Amazon was it a foregone conclusion that they were okay with their products being a marketplaces or is that something you had to kind of evolve into. Matt: [22:03] Some of the brands are receptive to it you know I think there's three buckets there's you know brands that are like hey you can sew on your own.com but you can't sell in marketplaces then we've had brands that are like, hey you can be an authorized retailer but you have to kind of like follow these guidelines and fall in line you can't change product items we're not going to make smu's for us, and then we have a third brand the third option where a lot of and these are I would say these are more of your up-and-coming Brands and more of your brands that are, maybe number two that are really trying to take the market share of number one, you know like what's the car rental company that always said we're number two were working going to work harder so those type of brands are the brands that we really have the best relationships with like a stainer that's, kind of said hey go ahead and take not only can you be on Amazon but we're going to give you the keys to the kingdom here's brand registry go run with it, and you know do video ads do all type of editorial marketing handle all that for you so we're kind of acting like an agency in that type of a relationship, more were handling that and following all their guidelines working when it with ownership working with the executives, and then carrying their core merchandise and also making exclusive merchandise for the Amazon Walmart type of marketplaces. Jason: [23:16] Gotcha so not only are you doing it but you're helping them get better at it and is that controversial at all like are you potentially enabling them to go direct and not need you as much. Matt: [23:27] I think yeah I think we you know that is controversial right I think you know I spent. Six figures on an event in Florida last year hosting all the top equipment Brands and was very adamant on here's our vision you know I think we're going to be like a Target or a Costco where. This industry is a little unique because you're always going to have. The traditional brands on the Major League field and in the college's so this is not a. An industry where people are just going to say okay now I'm going to wear all birds instead of Cole Haans right where so there's always going to be elements of the industry like people are always going to want to use a Rawlings glove or you know a little Slugger bat right. Or a Marucci bat so. Working with those vendors and carrying that type of merchandise that the people demand kind of creates the ability for us to make our. Merchandise that we make. You know advertised more and have more effect in the market because we're carrying both so and we kind of have always said that that we're going to be like a Costco or a Target and carry our own private label but we always want the Best Brands and the best equipment in there. Jason: [24:38] Yeah so then that brings me back to the influencers because in my mind the world is slightly changed a little bit like hey. But influencers have become a much more effective comment marketing tactic in almost every category but but in Sporting Goods particularly like, Sporting Goods that have a significant College element like baseball historically the influencer wasn't the player it was the University because the players we're not allowed to be in for answers but the the team's I'll sign contract so you so if you were super rich you could go buy a bunch of colleges they are would use your gear and then you were the de facto market leader but you know for the last couple years it's been legal for those individual players, to be their own brand and in some sports a lot of those players had then. Opted out of using the team sanctioned equipment is like and I was curious is that happening in baseball at all and is that going to open the door for more brands or have they figured out how to keep it locked down pretty well. Matt: [25:41] Yeah so not so much on the latter part of the equipment I'll kind of get into that in a minute but the obviously we were very. Early on as soon as that IL law came out we were one of the first, people to start signing College athletes and we've kind of been at the Forefront as a retailer and especially even outpacing a lot of Brands a lot of brands are asking actually asking us for advice and how we run the program so we have it, about 15 College athletes now between baseball and softball signed to our roster and we utilize them and. Not so much in a sales standpoint you're seeing a lot of traditional retailers out there big box stores are signing these college athletes and they're having them like take a picture in a shopping cart, like in their store and it just looks very like hey use my code at the checkout for 10% off. And what we really try to do if you check out our Instagram or Tik-Tok as we do a little a lot of viral like videos of Just interviewing them, we fly them in or will fly out and do a lot of photo shoots with the video team and will do videos of them using different equipment Guardian Brandon also non Guardian Brandon some of our brand partners, which they're really appreciative of and will leverage that content not only on social media but on our website email marketing but also on the marketplaces, and it's you know, I think the new wave of Amazon you've had this wave of Scott seen the different cycles of e-commerce retailers out there and I think direct to Consumer brands are really going hard. [27:06] Are really coming hard on the Amazon Marketplace so I think really the private label companies you know that are strictly just trying to create a commodity product on Amazon, are really going to be forced out by brands that are really bringing really good content and really good marketing on the Amazon platform much like the direct to Consumer brands of the last five years did on social media. Scot: [27:28] Got it so one way of reframing Guardian is you know there's some percentage of your stuff that you sell that the bread and butter its existing Brands but then you're also inside of their building a DTC brand to fill in the holes that by selling other people's stuff you realize hey maybe there needs to be a bat that's kind of like you know it's BBCOR this and we'll all that jazz but it needs to be at a lower price point is that a is that a fair. Matt: [27:51] That's exactly that's a yeah. Scot: [27:54] Cool so you're like a delicious d2c doughnut or a yeah with a with a good feeling so, so one of the reasons I wanted to get you on the podcast is you've been out there pretty vocal talking about by with prime so maybe explain for listeners who don't know what that is what it is from your perspective and then then how you guys got looped in on that. Matt: [28:18] Yeah so by with prime is a new offering from Amazon and it integrates into. Platforms like Shopify and Bigcommerce. And it allows a e-commerce retailer to pool their FBA inventory if they're on Amazon or they can send in inventory into Amazon. And there's a button on the Shopify site or the Bigcommerce site that bypasses the normal checkout process and it's just a one click buy now with Prime and then that item is fulfilled by Amazon, and that can choose and what type of box or whatever and you can actually deliver it in very competitive pricing compared to UPS FedEx you know a lot of the mail consolidators in one to two business days. Scot: [29:06] Got it and then if I. Matt: [29:08] It's a lot like it's a dressed-up it's like a gastropub version of their original like multi what was it called mer multi-channel fulfillment service. Scot: [29:17] Yeah yeah but with a consumer front end to it. Matt: [29:20] Yes with the consumer and actually some of the people in that department are like. Hey we had this originally for like five or ten years but they just dress it up and gave it a good logo so and some more front-end technology but you know it's a very compelling offer. Scot: [29:35] Yeah so the user consumer is I go to your website and I see I'm in the checkout process and it says hey you're a prime user you can just you've already got your payment and everything with Amazon and you know you're familiar with the prime promise which is the fast free shipping and then I just essentially press a button in her my Amazon credentials and I'm good to go is that. Matt: [29:56] Yeah and it's actually before the checkout process so if you it actually supports variation so, if you were selling red dresses and you had extra small and small and FBA but you were sold out and medium and you I'd meet him in your Warehouse then, it would actually if you chose the extra small or small would populate that button on the checkout before you click or on the item page before you added it to check out. Scot: [30:17] So you need you need to make it an inventory aware that it's in a FB a kind of thing okay interesting yeah alright but then the you know so, so this has been another reason this was topical is you know if we kind of rewind I like five years I think there's been this kind of started this got on my radar well first of all shopify's Mantra is arming the rebels right and so that folks being a Star Wars fan that invokes a Star Wars kind of thing and then you're kind of like well who's the Death Star and it turns out Amazon's the Death Star and their arm the rebels so then they've been poking Amazon. Jason: [30:52] Oddly Kylie Jenner is Luke Skywalker in that metaphor but yeah. Scot: [30:56] Sure yeah and and then and then the Shopify social media started to really poke around Amazon it made fun of Jeff Bezos was in some tabloids for some pictures that surfaced and they were making fun of that and then his divorce and all that and then I was sitting there watching that you and I have seen other companies kind of poke the Amazon Baron it hasn't gone very well for him sitting there watching as like this is not gonna go well for these guys and then sure enough you know flash word to hear Shopify has hit some issues with growth rates they over-invested in the post covid world and then famously Toby the CEO was talking about he got asked on a conference call a Wall Street conference call what he thought about by with Prime and he's like oh we love Innovation and we would we would love to adopt it well then they had to backtrack that so are you guys caught up in that like are you know because they basically are now telling Merchants that if you use it, it's pretty hard language they're saying you're probably going to be open to fraud and we can't protect you and so they're definitely heading down this path I think of, trying to make it very hard for you to use this feature. Matt: [32:13] In terms of like are you asking what would I do as a business or in terms of where do you think the industry will kind of go. Scot: [32:19] We'll have has you know I'm assuming you're tracking this pretty closely because you're all you always are yeah. Jason: [32:25] Did you get the threatening letter from from Shopify. Matt: [32:27] Yeah it's we didn't get a threatening letter but we've seen all the pop-up of the terms of service and are account that popped up. Scot: [32:33] Yeah yeah it reminds me of the early days of eBay where they were like there's this thing PayPal we think it's very suspicious and we're not really sure you should use you should use our crappy payment thing that takes 50 clicks and rarely works but it's so super secure, yes so that that's interesting do you where do you think that you know as a merchant, you are on this platform and you want the flexibility to do everything how does it make you feel as from a business perspective to. Matt: [33:00] From a business for so personal and then where the industry is heading I mean where the industry is heading I think you have to look. Amazon is going to rule the world of logistics you know you've seen FedEx come out with the reports where they've had one of their biggest messes ever and I think. You're seeing Amazon trunks more and more and it's the more reliable you know delivery than a lot of the common carrier so. And I've seen you know Scott we've seen what GSI and eBay and Walmart I mean Rockies Han launched of a competitor try to take out FBI I mean these are huge companies that really tried to take on Amazon and Logistics front. And I can tell you I've used what is now I guess Shopify Logistics or whatever they're going to rename it but deliver and, it it did not really work for our business you know I can't speak for other people but it had a lot of bugs in the integration it's there's a lot of flaws with the delivery process and I don't know if that was the best egg acquisition for deliver and I don't know if it'll really work out. For a merchants and so I think there's a lot of there's a lot of progress that Amazon has made to really out do a lot of everyone in the logistics world. [34:14] And I just don't know if other people are going to be able to keep up and I think Innovation is always going to you know fee if Amazon is able to deliver things in one to two days for a Shopify, at prices than most Shopify Merchants can negotiate directly with UPS or FedEx or USPS for standard shipping then you know. [34:35] I understand what's good for Shopify and they want him to go through the checkout but what's good for their merchants on their platform than somebody might actually start to. Take that business platform because I know as as a business owner and as a CEO I would I would make the Assumption if Shopify came in and said that. And we saw by with prime become successful as we've seen in some initial few weeks of launching it, then we would probably consider re-platforming maybe to a Bigcommerce or maybe somebody that Amazon had a really good relationship with. And maybe that's not you know the smartest move at this point but in the future when you know we can deliver Goods because part of our selling feature to people to outdo the box stores, is not you know because people can go to a dicks or Academy, and they can have the much better selection they VIP programs and everything so something we instituted on Guardian baseball.com is when I set out to start the business is I wanted to offer a free 6-month extended warranty, on all bats and equipment. [35:35] Because the Brand's only offer a year so we're a year and a half and I said if we compete with these brands in a world of price monitoring and price mapping and the price is the same everywhere if we're going to have a pair of cleats listed on Amazon and F ba and then we're selling them with standard shipping on our website then the only thing we really have to do is play with price and discounting, and enduring a world of price parity that's impossible so for a d2c Merchants that plays on the Amazon space you have to able to offer that same offering, of that one to two day shipping like Amazon does on your own D2 seeing if you. [36:06] Then you can't really expand in the Amazon because you're just going to cannibalize your own sales on on your own d2c site so I think you have to offer it both so I think Innovation will always continue to succeed, in the market and I think Brands will start to partner with people that are going to partner with Amazon. Scot: [36:23] Yeah often kind of war game did this Jason I'm pretty sure we've said this on the podcast a couple times if I was personally Amazon and I got the job of disrupting Shopify, you know what I would do is I would leverage FBA and I would go and I get as many Shopify people using FBA and then then that would give me the hook to then say well let's say they came out with a competing platform or or they just. They wanted you to go to a, friendly third party platform like let's say it's Bigcommerce or something then then you just kind of proved to me that that is enough hook for the merchants to to make a front-end switch because that that, that fast relatively inexpensive shipping is so important to most companies and because customers expect. Matt: [37:09] And I think Amazon has the war chest to say if Java does come out with that I mean. And I go to the by with prom team and say hey look I have to lever I have to change the Bigcommerce it's going to cost me X you know if you want me to continue using by with prime what can you guys do for me I mean you know. Scot: [37:26] Yeah so you hinted that it's going really well are there any stats you can share with us so like I guess there's one thing would be you know you can only show it so many times because there's going to only be a surface area of inventory that's an FBA but then when it's shown is that got higher conversion than other things anything you can share there would be interesting. Matt: [37:46] So it does have some cons there's a lot of things that are on the road map with by with prime but I mean the obvious obviously the successes are, we're seeing a slight Improvement do the familiar with the prime badge and also the estimated shipping dates the Fulfillment costs are generally 25 to 30 percent less than we can currently negotiate and I'm with a lot of mail consolidators, you know resellers a post office obviously you know I've been in this world so I know that different ways to negotiate with FedEx ups and a lot of the mail consolidators. In the quicker delivery times are generally seen 24 to 48 hours max we're seeing is 72 hours and the a big con of that as you can keep the customer data unlike regular FBA sales. Um and they're also offering you know obviously I was doubted accelerate I spoke at by with Braun conference prior to accelerated Amazon HQ, last week and it accelerate they announced that they're you know offering a bunch of different initiatives that are kind of new for Amazon where they're offering. Brands are participating by with prime the ability to actually mark it on the Amazon platform but back to their d2c site. [38:53] So there's a lot of compelling offers out there that they're kind of opening up the amazon Universe to which is kind of unique and I was actually surprised about. But one of the big issues that they're working on is the conversion tracking so our marketing pixels don't record purchases made from the by with prime button which is something that they're working on. And the akan that they're working on other are releasing this is you can purchase you can only purchase one bearing at a time so it's not like a checkout experience, where you can group a bunch of different items you actually have to like physically buy one item go back to the site so we have a lot of multicart, on our website unlike Amazon which is a lot of single item you pts and so we're seeing you know on a lot of those bulk they're still going to do the traditional checkout process because I don't think it's like it's hard to really explain that to the customer we're like hey if you want to buy the single item go with by with Prime. So we're seeing at limited success with a lot of 10 items. [39:53] If we don't currently with the current integration with Shopify it doesn't have the inventory transparency so we have to double up with an mcf integration. So it's something. You know it's kind of a unique situation with our business model because we have a separate FB a skew so there's some you know quarks in there, and there's some different things that they're really kind of coming out so with but it's I call them cons but it's really things that are calling the roadmap and right as they kind of said at the conference to me and a large group of you know. Agencies and sellers is we wanted to get it out there in the marketplace and I said that's smart and then we want to work on these as opposed to having a perfect program and releasing it a year later. Jason: [40:38] Yeah so I actually just realized we didn't. We didn't articulate a couple things for visitors to just make sure everybody is tracking Guardian baseball is running on Shopify. And you are an early adopter by with prime so and you even you promoted on the homepage right so you've got like very distinctive branding by with prime which is Amazon's program that you know if you're already a Prime member gives you that, that Prime service level of fulfillment and the prime wallet even when you buy it on Guardian baseball so. A couple of things kind of jump out at me there. You hit one that is a big problem for me is the multi skew problem but I think of the by with prime checkout flow is being very similar to the traditional shot PayPal flow. In that the checkout button shows up on as a separate button on the pdps but PayPal also let you. Like use PayPal as the payment method in the cart for the multi skew purchase so you Amazon doesn't have a solution for that today but you could imagine that they would enable by with prime both on the product level and at the cart levels. Matt: [41:54] Yes and that's what they're working towards. Jason: [41:56] Yeah so so that's always one big problem because you know side note most e-commerce sites are not very profitable if the if the, if the average items per order is 1 so so we definitely we need to sell more stuff in most cases to make this profitable the threatening letter I would add to is not Shopify saying hey you're not allowed to accept by with, it's simply them saying in our opinion their security flaws in, doing this kind of thing and we might not be able to indemnify you if there's a fraud problem as a result of that right like that's that's the kind of passive-aggressive, approach shopify's taken to date on it and it is funny to me because all of those same security holes would also be true of PayPal by the way and Shopify has never really complained about PayPal before. Um so that gets me to the other big problem I see for both Prime and I'm curious if I'm wrong or if you're seeing it by with prime only works for existing Prime members there's no onboarding experience so if I'm not a Prime member and I go to Guardian baseball.com I see this huge well go on the homes thing that says by with prime which I don't have Prime and then when I'm looking at an individual skew I want to buy there's a by with prime checkout button, and I could click that button but I won't be allowed to check out because I don't I don't have Prime and so if the only. Scot: [43:21] Who doesn't have Prime. Matt: [43:23] I'm glad it's got Evans. Jason: [43:27] Nobody listening to this podcast but there's 100 million Prime members in the world so even if we assume, 70 million of them are in North America 80 million if you want to be really aggressive are in North America there's 240 million households in North America so two-thirds of the households in the United States of America would be the answer like can't click that button right and so I guess I went like you've got this fragmented inventory you have some of your inventory you can you can fulfill through the the Shopify check out some you can only fulfill through by with prime but then like you have no way to give the non-prime members access to that is that a am I making up a problem and that hasn't been a problem for you or do you think you have, have non-prime members that are kind of in the whole right now on that. Matt: [44:16] I think that's something to Amazon can better communicate we are obviously limited to what they can do on the side but a normal customer can still do the normal checkout process of adding the cart. But I think yeah that's obviously something Amazon can do and then also doesn't support discounts which is a big not only the conversion tracking but discount so obviously a lot of direct to Consumer sites. Like us are offering discounts or first-time customers or email you know pay 25% off with this code or Black Friday Cyber Monday so the currently does not support so it's very limited, but we really feel it's kind of right now in its use and this is going to change in the next three to six months but right now it's kind of like a fast lane, you know where you're paying like at Disney World for the fast ticket or whatever the top-of-the-line and we really feel that hey you can go through your normal checkout process. But we also have this ability we're going to a fast pass you know if you want it now you don't want to Discount you know you want it quicker and you want that problem delivery. Jason: [45:13] Yeah so it's weird like here's how I like I totally agree with how you're thinking about by with prime you also take shop pay on the site and I would argue there's a different set of pros and cons to shop pay for different customers in different circumstances it seems like the solution to all these that none of these companies are willing to do is you ought to be able to just expose the by with prime button to known Prime members and you ought to be able to just expose the shop pay check out to known shop pay holders. Matt: [45:46] I love that idea. Jason: [45:47] Yeah trust me when you suggested to Amazon they're not going to like you because they, because they want that logo everywhere but yeah so that that seems like the, the state of by with prime right now it's super interesting and it's super interesting you're saying like man if Shopify ever said we it's a it's a hard know then that would make you reconsider the platform like that you know like that speaks volumes that's interesting. Matt: [46:14] I think you know I think Amazon's coming out with this program in there. [46:19] I think everyone say okay is is a lot of these direct-to-consumer Shopify Brands going to adapt Amazon FBA and I think a number of them are but I think what also this is going to help. A lot of Amazon Brands a lot of Amazon DTC brands that are really executing well like a guardian on marketing, on creating good content in there not just these Dropship Private Label Amazon sellers, that are out there and you know let's go Source one or two products on Alibaba and sell them under some name and compete with the Chinese but really people that are building a brand you know the brands that are getting acquired by the aggregators and those type of brands. And those brands that may be. Our and expanded into Walmart expanded into other categories but are scared to kind of make that big investment into a Shopify site and hire the marketing team and really become like a full-fledged direct-to-consumer I think. What Amazon's doing on the marketing front. And the Fulfillment front is going to help these Amazon d2c Brands and I think what's going to happen is going to create a rise of the next wave of d2c or the next kind of. Trendy type of companies that come out there so you've seen obviously a lot of trends like 2010's as flash sales and then you saw direct to Consumer Brands and subscription boxes, and the direct to Consumer Brands predominantly grew on social media Instagram Facebook when the iOS changes you know weren't adapted and traffic was still cheap so. [47:44] I think you're going to see a lot of these the next wave of cool direct to Consumer Brands will come from Amazon and they will adapt on the data see sites with the help of Amazon. Scot: [47:54] Prick. Matt: [47:55] And I don't think you're going to see as much D to see big brands that are adapting the Amazon by with Prime at least initially and I think eventually that you'll see a lot more adoption once a lot of these quirks are worked out. Scot: [48:09] Yeah a lot of d2c Brands got born off Facebook but apple and the atti DFA of kind of crushed that so now Amazon used is kind of the way to go so I think what you're saying right. Matt: [48:20] Yeah I think so and I think that's going to create a next wave of either the brands are going to adapt from a t2c over to Amazon or you're going to see these kind of Amazon native people that have kind of running this world like I have for the last two decades that really know how to master the marketplace know how to assemble the teams of marketing customer service and everything and use the right technology stocks, for those businesses and really adopt and really grow really Innovative brands. Scot: [48:47] I know you need to go and like four minutes so we could wrap it a fire this. Matt: [48:50] You're good you can tell Ron few months if you. Scot: [48:52] About dying dying to know what do you think about all the FBA Roll-Ups they were all quite the fashion and now they seem to be hitting some hard times did you ever buy into that trend. Matt: [49:03] I think anyone in this market I mean you look at a lot of our outspoken people on social media of those, you know it's tough to acquire that many Brands and I think there are some people that are successful with it that are more going in The Tortoise and the Hare that you know we all I'm hearing some successful people where there's let you know. By maybe they own 15 brands or they own 10 brands but obviously the big big aggregators that everyone talks about are obviously struggling you're seeing layoffs so. I wasn't really you know how to directly opinion on it I thought it was there's no way they could acquire that many Brands and with it with the market model of not keeping the entrepreneurial on because I think there's always an art form to e-commerce you can have all the analytics you want you can have all the data scientists and, and all the formula but you know when you hire College grads and to run these businesses that don't have experience you it's always a touch and feel there's always 20-30 percent art right, that somebody needs to know and the older I get I realize that I have that on the marketplace of how to really build the brands and how to adapt Brands to that, and that's why I've been successful and I'm realizing that's my strength so I think some of those aggregators really didn't have that kind of DNA of the entrepreneur and keep that intact and that might have been a downfall of some of those. Jason: [50:21] Yeah it's it is interesting I can certainly see companies kind of being born direct-to-consumer on Amazon having their first customers come from Amazon and then outgrow Amazon over time where you want your own URLs or move to other things which like I mean I think, anchor is kind of the Prototype. Matt: [50:42] That yeah that was that's a really good. Jason: [50:45] But I do think I think it's really risky whether you're a rollup or an individual brand or whatever it's really risky to think I'm Amazon is always going to be my exclusive, acquisition Channel because the problem is Amazon Super efficient at getting the maximum, fee for each customer you acquire and so yeah you can buy some of those you know customers at first to get started but you're always going to be paying the highest price and you know the big news that came out this month is I forget what their new name was but Pharma packs which has been a top five, seller on Amazon for like 10 years, and exclusively sell through Amazon they just they declared bankruptcy and they're like one of the biggest most successful Amazon sellers of all time and to me that's a cautionary tale for, like at some point you need to diversify your customer acquisition you can't solely rely on Amazon as that is that source for you. Matt: [51:42] I think yes I think it's a part of a Playbook and you have to adhere to other channels and grow in other channels but you know obviously. Amazon's one of the biggest places to acquire customers one of the most successful so I think it's always going to be in a portfolio but it needs to be part of a whole portfolio. Jason: [51:58] Hundred percent that's why they robbed the money from the banks right because that's what, that's where the money is but man I think that's going to be a good place to wrap it because we have used up our lot of time as per usual if you got value out of this episode we sure would appreciate that five star review on iTunes. Scot: [52:16] Matt we really appreciate taking time to tell your arterial story and share with us your thoughts about both Prime if lister's want to look you up online other than going in and buying some stuff that Guardian baseball what should they do. Matt: [52:29] I'm on LinkedIn Instagram and it's (2) Matt Kubancik