Podcasts about vendor manager

In dieser Folge sprechen Host Moritz Meyer und AOM Stammgast & Vendor-Experte Martin Heubel über die jährlichen Verhandlungen zwischen Amazon und Amazon Vendoren. Martin gibt Tipps für Markenhersteller, die helfen, optimal vorbereitet in die Jahresverhandlungen zu starten. Wie können Vendoren das Jahresgespräch proaktiv beeinflussen und verhindern, den teils überzogenen Forderungen von Amazon ausgeliefert zu sein? Welche Verhandlungsstrategie und welche psychologischen Hebel nutzen Amazon Vendor Manager in den Jahresverhandlungen? Wie kann die Analyse der bisherigen Retail Media Performance dabei helfen, datenbasierte Argumente für die Verhandlung zu finden? Welche Rolle kann eine invertierte Wachstumspyramide dabei spielen? Welche Konditionen und Maßnahmen können kommerziell, im Marketing und im operativen Bereich eingefordert werden? Zum Abschluss teilt Martin hilfreiche Benchmarks, mit denen die eigene Performance und Verhandlungsposition besser bewertet werden kann.

Heute zu Gast Amazon Vendor Experte & AOM Stammgast Martin Heubel. Martin hat bereits zum zweiten Mal eine umfassende Vendor-Studie durchgeführt. Dabei hat er über 250 Amazon Vendoren zu verschiedenen Themen befragt. Im Gespräch mit unserem Host Moritz Meyer teilt Martin exklusiv seine Erkenntnisse. Wie ist die durchschnittliche Investment-Entwicklung im Jahresvergleich? Wie viele Vendoren konnten die Investitionen in den Jahresgesprächen herunterverhandeln? Wie lange dauerten die Jahresverhandlungen durchschnittlich und steht die Dauer der Jahresgespräche und der Outcome in direktem Zusammenhang? Wie wichtig ist es, das eigene Senior Management an Bord zu haben und gibt es eine Korrelation von erfolgreichen Verhandlungen und der Education von Führungsteams? Martin teilt interessante Vergleichswerte für alle Amazon Vendoren und gibt praktische Tipps für die frühzeitige Vorbereitung des nächsten Jahresgesprächs.

Get our FREE Amazon PPC bid optimizer: https://adlabs.app/  Join our FREE Discord community of Amazon PPC managers: https://discord.gg/AYfMkfBPzG  Sign up for That Amazon Ads Masterclass: https://thatamazonadsmasterclass.com/  ---- Today, we're diving into the world of Vendor Central with former Vendor Manager and true expert, Josh Cowan. We'll be discussing many of the challenges facing Amazon Vendors and provide some thoughts on when it might be time to make the switch from Vendor to Seller. ▶️ Connect with Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuatcowan/ 

On the podcast this week I had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Viveta Gene. Viveta Gene is a passionate and driven executive armed with 20+ years of experience in the translation and localization industry.  She has a 360-degree view of the Translation and Localization Workflow thanks to her previous experience as a Language Solutions Specialist, Business Developer, Vendor Manager, Project Manager and Linguist. Her focus is to promote new trends in the industry, where translation skills meet MT technology and Localization Engineering. Machine translation engines, automated translation and post editing of machine translated output are amongst her fields of interest and the topic of her PhD Research.  Her passion is acquiring new skills, shaping positive mindsets and inspiring people.Viveta works for BWX (Bureau Works), a major AI localization platform you can leverage in the T&I industry. Here are some notable nuggets from our conversation: Playing and talking fair, open and transparent communication is important to avoid misunderstandings in regard to the challenge of AIThe system's MT functions leverages Microsoft Azure and ChatGPT (3.5/4)MT and LLMs offer predictable and unpredictable translation output, respectivelyI´m now a proud affiliate for this cutting-edge tool. Here are three specific reasons for my endorsement:BWX has a highly unique and user-friendly interfaceAll its various features are synergistic in user-tool termsIts powerful "translation smells" functions detects any problem in your translationPlease enjoy!*Use this special link for a 30% discount on your BWX subscription the first 3 months Discount coupon: entrepreneurial#BureauWorks #BWXTranslation #AIForTranslators#EffortlessTranslation #SmartTranslationTool #TranslatorTech#LanguageInnovation #BWXInAction #FreelanceTranslation#PrecisionWithBWX #TranslationSimplified #BWXAdvantage#AIEmpoweredTranslation #StreamlinedLocalization #TimeSavingTranslations#EnhancedProductivity #TranslateSmarter #BWXForFreelancers#LinguisticExcellence #InnovateWithBureauWorksBuy our e-book: How to Find More Direct Clients Thrive as a Premium Freelance Translator in Your Niche and Futureproof Your Career

In der heutigen Episode haben wir Julian Schenk, Vendor Manager von Bears with Benefits zu Gast. Er gibt uns tiefe Einblicke in die Zahlenwelt rundum Amazon PPC. Insbesondere zeigt er auf, warum ein granuläres Zahlverständnis essentiell ist und welcher Metriken wir uns zur Optimierungen von Geboten und Budgets bedienen können. Hier gehts zu Julian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-schenk-8b184821a/ Ein Podcast von Dype www.dype.me hallo@dype.me

In dieser Folge sprechen Host Moritz Meyer und AOM Stammgast & Vendor-Experte Martin Heubel über die jährlichen Verhandlungen zwischen Amazon und Amazon Vendoren. Martin gibt Tipps für Markenhersteller, die helfen, optimal vorbereitet in die Jahresverhandlungen zu starten. Wie können Vendoren das Jahresgespräch proaktiv beeinflussen und verhindern, den teils überzogenen Forderungen von Amazon ausgeliefert zu sein? Welche Verhandlungsstrategie und welche psychologischen Hebel nutzen Amazon Vendor Manager in den Jahresverhandlungen? Wie kann die Analyse der bisherigen Retail Media Performance dabei helfen, datenbasierte Argumente für die Verhandlung zu finden? Welche Rolle kann eine invertierte Wachstumspyramide dabei spielen? Welche Konditionen und Maßnahmen können kommerziell, im Marketing und im operativen Bereich eingefordert werden? Zum Abschluss teilt Martin hilfreiche Benchmarks, mit denen die eigene Performance und Verhandlungsposition besser bewertet werden kann.

Sea 3 Ep 10 Emergency POP UP - “Amazon Inform Consumer Act” with Gabriella Neske  5/26/2023 RARE quick pop up on something that just hit almost all Amazon Sellers! Gabriella Neske, Sr Director Ecommerce Marketplaces for Mamiye Brother. Gabriella is a former Vendor Manager at Amazon along with a long career in retail and ecommerce. She joins Scott as she was the first to notify of this huge panic that shows up on so many Seller Central accounts on Amazon with this new law, Inform Consumer Act and all sellers have until June 27th 2023 to comply with this Federal new law! She walks us through on what it is, the way and how to get it handled. This fire drill also brings up other issues on getting the primary account holder to do the stuff and how do you actually transfer the primary account holder on Seller Central which is a whole other work around for everyone who needs to pass the torch.  Always Off Brand Simplifies Ecommerce and guarantees to make you laugh and learn at the same time!    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/   Guests: Gabriella Neske  - Sr Director Ecommerce Marketplaces at Mamiye Brothers LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaneske/ HOSTS: Summer Jubelirer has been in digital commerce and marketing for over 15 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 27 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 Marketing Coordinator 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.  

Im zweiten Live Podcast vom Amazon Sales Kongress 2023 spricht unser Host Florian Vette mit Oliver Tomaschewski. Oliver verantwortet den E-Commerce Bereich von GROHE, einer der Top Brands für Bad- und Küchenarmaturen. Die beiden sprechen über die Etablierung des E-Commerce-Bereiches in einem traditionsreichen B2B Unternehmen. Es geht um internationale Teamstrukturen, Prozesse und interne Kompetenzen. Wie haben Trend-Analysen und Corona dazu geführt, dass GROHE eine neue B2C-Untermarke entwickelt hat, die vor allem auf Online-Marktplätzen präsentiert wird? Welchen Einfluss hat das wachsende Online Business auf die Markendarstellung und den Content von GROHE? Wie optimiert man Etiketten, Prozesse und Co., um Shortage Claims und Charge Backs zu reduzieren? Oliver spricht außerdem darüber, wie man die Zusammenarbeit mit Amazon und dem Vendor Manager verbessert - von der Jahresverhandlung über die allgemeine Kommunikation bis hin zum Anfordern spannender Insights. Themen: Teamstruktur, Internationalisierung, Content, B2B, B2C, Sortimentsstrategie, Amazon Setup, Vendor Manual, AVS, Vendor Management, Amazon Jahresverhandlung, Learnings, Shortage Claims, Fehlmengen, Mindestbestellmengen, SSCC Codes, License Rebate Receipt, CLI, SUPER PICS, Kaizen Workshop, CSA, MDF, Retouren, Garantie, Kundenservice

Im zweiten Teil des Gesprächs mit Amazon Vendor-Experte Martin Heubel geht es um unterjährige Jahresverhandlungen mit Amazon. Unser Host Moritz Meyer spricht mit Martin darüber, wie Lieferanten erfolgreich aus der Verhandlung mit Amazon hervorgehen. Mit welcher Vorbereitung bin ich richtig aufgestellt für die Verhandlung? Welche Top-Verhandlungsthemen gibt es dieses Jahr auf Seiten Amazons und bei den Kunden? Der Haupt-Margen-Treiber ist der Amazon Vendor Service. Was kann ich vom AVS erwarten und wie sorgen ich dafür, dass die Zusammenarbeit mit meinem Vendor Manager erfolgreich wird? Außerdem erklärt Martin, wie es möglich ist auch ohne VM auf andere Marktplätze zu expandieren. Wie sorge ich dafür, dass Amazon meine Produkte als relevant für andere Ländermärkte betrachtet? Wie kann ich in der Verhandlung mit Amazon eine möglichst günstige und schnelle Internationalisierung möglich machen? Themen: AVN, AVS, VM, Amazon Vendor Negotiations, Vendor Manager, Brand Specialist, CRaP, Jahresverhandlung, Vendor-Vertrag, Margen-Optimierung, Profitabilität, Pan-EU, Sortimentsstrategie, Vendor Verhandlung, 1P, 3P

Martin Heubel ist Amazon Vendor-Experte. Als Senior Category Manager bei Amazon hat Martin namenhafte Marken aus den Bereich Haushaltswaren, Food und Süßwaren bei ihrem Vendor Geschäft unterstützt. Inzwischen ist der Amazon Vendor Specialist Martin selbständiger Berater und hilft Brands dabei ihre Profitabilität auf Amazon zu steigern. Amazon hat verkündet, die Geschäftsbeziehungen zu Distributoren zeitnah einzustellen. Im Gespräch mit unserem Host Moritz Meyer teil Martin seine Einschätzung zu dieser Entscheidung und erklärt uns warum Amazon diesen Weg geht. Welche Strategie verfolgt Amazon damit und wen betrifft die Veränderung genau? Was hat die Corona-Pandemie damit zu tun und inwiefern spielen die Entlassungen von Mitarbeitern eine Rolle?. Themen: AVN, AVS, VM, Amazon Vendor Negotiations, Vendor Manager, Brand Specialist, CRaP, Jahresverhandlung, Vendor-Vertrag, Margen-Optimierung, Profitabilität, Pan-EU, Sortimentsstrategie, Distributoren, Vendor Verhandlung, 1P, 3P

There are two ways you can sell on Amazon. You can sell through Seller Central (3P) or to Amazon via Vendor Central (1P). For many third-party sellers, 1P is somewhere they never want to go, but it's an absolute necessity for some brands.Today's episode is all about 1P.I interview Martin Heubel about the pros and cons and the common issues brands face when using Amazon Vendor Central.Martin is a former Amazon Vendor Manager, strategy consultant, and ecommerce enthusiast. He is an Amazon vendor manager whisperer for brands looking to survive and thrive on Amazon 1P.Having sat on the other side for many years, Martin has a unique perspective on what brands need to do to succeed on Amazon and beyond.Often, we dehumanize Amazon, but once you listen to this episode and hear how they make some of their decisions, you'll understand why they do it.They are not just thinking about you as a vendor; they are also thinking about the greater online retail landscape, which can make negotiations tough. This makes selling online complex, especially if you are selling to Amazon and other channels.A key requirement for success for 1P sellers on Amazon Vendor Central is to have a solid channel control strategy to enforce pricing and distribution control across all your digital channels. This way, you can effectively negotiate with Amazon for price increases.This is a valuable episode for any Vendor Central Seller who wants to understand the inner workings of Amazon. Even 3P sellers will get a lot of value for it.Tune in.Key Takeaways- 1P vs. 3P from a brand and Amazon perspective (03:23)- Amazon's excess warehousing capacity (07:22)- The major cons of 1P (10:33)- The Amazon marketplace is a mirror of your distribution strategy (14:39)- Channel control in the digital age (20:07)- Vendor central negotiation tactics (24:00)- Amazon overstock problem (34:05)- The #1 mistake vendors make when negotiating with Amazon (41:55)Additional Resources:Connect with Martin Heubel✅  Website ✅  LinkedIn----- Schedule a FREE consultation with the Ave7 team- Grab the FREE Amazon Seller Central Checklist- Get the book “The Amazon Jungle” book by Jason Boyce- Learn more about Avenue 7 Media----Day 2 Podcast has a goal of helping Amazon sellers learn how to launch, grow and protect their brand on the world's largest online marketplace (and beyond).Follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode!

I have been in the e-commerce space since 2016 in a variety of roles. I have been on both sides of the Amazon platform and have gone from having no choice but to be resourceful and scrappy to working with large teams and significant resources to grow sales and streamline operations.In July, I will begin managing OnePlus' Amazon Retail account for the United States.I have:- Launched a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo- Lived in China to source from factories and validate production- Owned and operated a Seller Central business originating from the crowdfunding campaign- Worked at Amazon as a Vendor Manager, overseeing two multi-million dollar P&Ls- Sourced PPE and Professional Medical Equipment for Amazon's Medical and Covid Rapid Supply Expansion Task Force- Consulted for Sellers and Vendors at an Ecommerce Agency- Managed a multi-million dollar brand for Razor group, an e-commerce aggregatorWhat are some questions and topics you enjoy talking about?:- What vendors get wrong about Amazon- Interesting developments in the E-commerce space- Amazon Seller vs Vendor Central- Amazon culture and understanding Amazon's priorities- How Amazon has changed over the years- What its like being on both sides of the Amazon platform- Common mistakes I've seen sellers or newbies make- Crowdfunding advice- My experience in China visting factories and sourcing new products- Amazon's Covid-19 response and the Covid-19 Rapid Supply Task Force

Darcy Meier is the Director for eCommerce Category and Customer Development at Newell Brands, the company behind trusted names like Graco, Baby Jogger, Sharpie, and Dymo. Darcy was also Senior Director for eCommerce at Vi-Jon, where she managed the company's private label relationship with Amazon and developed their multi-year e-commerce business strategy. Throughout her career, she's also worked at Amazon as a Vendor Manager and Walmart as a Buyer. In this episode… As more buyers shop online, e-commerce has become an essential channel for brands to reach more customers and remain relevant in the digital age. But, as top brands pivot and strengthen their hold in the e-commerce space, they find themselves facing tough challenges. Obstacles like steep competition and brand misuse by third-party sellers can stop new businesses before they even get started. On top of that, companies also struggle to make their business sustainable within the Amazon ecosystem. On this episode of the Buy Box Experts podcast, James Thomson and Darcy Meier, Newell Brands Director for eCommerce Category and Customer Development, run through some of the biggest challenges brands face on the Amazon platform. Darcy shares tips on how organizations can grow and protect their brand on Amazon. She also mentions ways companies can leverage online data to guide future innovations and help them strengthen their position in the e-commerce market.

We are joined by Kobo’s Siobhan Padgett on the podcast this week. Siobhan is the Senior Vendor Manager for the US and Canada, working with hundreds of publishers across both territories, and she talks to us about her role at Kobo, what elements successful titles have in common, and what indie publishers and traditional publishers can learn from one another. Siobhan has worked in the publishing industry for over two decades and she shares what changes she has seen within the industry, where she hopes the industry will go in the future, and she shares some fun insider stories with us.  Learn more about this episode!

Deep Dive zu den Amazon Verkaufsmodellen Seller, Vendor, Hybrid und Brand Manager – Moritz Meyer und Florian Vette von MOVESELL vergleichen alle Modelle und erläutern Vor- und Nachteile. Diese Bereiche werden diskutiert: Daten (API, Reports, Brand Analytics), Content (Pflege, Richtlinien, Schreibrechte), Rezensionen, Sonderprogramme (z. B. Amazon Fresh), Ansprechpartner (AVS, SVS, Advertising Manager, Vendor Manager), Automatisierung, Logistik (FBM, FBA, Dropshipping, Vendor Manual), Produktlistung & Lagerbestand, Buchhaltung (Rechnungen, Internationalisierung), Kosten (Vendor-Vertrag, Verkaufsgebühren), Konkurrenz mit Handelspartnern, Preis (Preisfindung, Preispolitik, Buybox)

La storia di Gian Maria, che dopo Bachelor in Economics and Management alla LUISS, intraprende il Master in Management con ESCP tra Londra e Parigi, che gli permette varie esperienze di internship. Finiti gli studi approccia il mondo della consulenza con Deloitte in Lussemburgo per poi spostarsi nel grande mondo Amazon. Superate le 5 interview iniziali, viene assegnato al ruolo di Brand Specialist per Amazon Fresh e Prime Now UK, dove tuttora svolge il ruolo di Vendor Manager. Con Gian Maria parliamo di:01:00 il suo background e il Master in Management con ESCP02:40 le possibilità di internship durante il Master03:15 il percorso post-universitario in realtà differenti04:30 l'esperienza in Deloitte a Lussemburgo05:45 il perchè del pivot su Amazon07:15 come uscire il maniera ottimale da un rapporto di lavoro che non stimola più----------09:30 il mondo di Amazon Fresh e Amazon Prime Now in UK11:25 l'application da Amazon, preliminary steps e 5 interview situazionali13:25 un esempio di "dimmi una volta in cui..." 15:20 la "customer obsession" di Amazon e la sedia vuota17:55 quanto è complesso il processo di selezione18:40 come si è preparato Gian Maria----------19:40 da Brand Specialist a Vendor Manager in UK, la quotidianità in Amazon22:50 le competenze, soft e non, acquisite e sfruttate da Gian Maria24:60 come affacciarsi sul mondo Amazon, da posizione più Senior27:20 il futuro nel percorso di Gian Maria, cosa offre Amazon29:55 l'allineamento con Amazon ti permette di cambiare totalmente contestoIl profilo LinedIn di Gian Maria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianmariagramondi/La nostra community Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/49088297/admin/La nostra community Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truemillennials/?hl=itPer informazioni o richieste commerciali: info@truemillennials.it

EP237 - Always Day One author Alex Kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitzer (@Kantrowitz) is the author of “Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever.” He is an on-air contributor at CNBC and host of the Big Technology podcast. In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss the unique management styles at Apple, Google, and Facebook, as well as doing a deep dive into what makes the Amazon culture unique. Disclosure: links to Amazon are affiliate links. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 237 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, September 24th, 2020. 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: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 237 being recorded on Thursday September 24th 2020, I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners tonight on the show we are really excited to have the author of the book released, this April always day one so if you’re familiar with Amazon that maybe a hint of what we’re going to talk about tonight and he’s also the host of the big technology podcast. Alex kantrowitz welcome to the Jason Scott show. Jason: [1:05] We are three of the have you Alex I’m not remotely implying that this is why you wrote the book but Scott is a sucker for anything Amazon so it’s the fastest way to get on our podcast is to write an Amazon book. Alex: [1:17] Well you don’t even need to imply it I mean it was absolutely the goal and I’ve waited a long time but I’m glad to finally fulfill it here with you guys tonight. Jason: [1:25] Yeah well very well played also for for folks that have already read the book or are going to read the book as a result of this interview, so as not to trick you the book is actually about more than Amazon but you wisely chose to elevate the Amazon portion to the title of the book which totally worked with Scott. Scot: [1:42] Wait wait the whole books not about answer. Jason: [1:45] Scott’s pretending like he hasn’t read the book but obviously being the consummate professional he is he’s read everything you’ve ever written. Before we jump into the book Alex the first thing we always like to do on the show is get a little background I got about the guests and kind of find out how how you came to your current role so could you tell us a little bit about yourselves. Alex: [2:05] Definitely so I started my career buying digital ads right at the moment where Facebook was surpassing Myspace in the social media Arena, and just watched it happen as a practitioner bought those ads and I spent about a year selling ad Tech, in New York and just it was writing about it on the side and a certain point realized that this world was changing so fast that I’d much rather write about it professionally, then do what I was doing it might have been just a function of the companies I was at but for me I saw there were so many stories that the media were was either getting half right or missing completely and, you know I love doing the work and you’re digging up what was going on and finding a way to tell it to an audience and just kind of made the leap so I covered the advertising industry in particular at first working for ad age then went to BuzzFeed to cover like Facebook and Google and Snapchat and Twitter, and while I was there just decided to go ahead and write this book always day one which looks really at the different Tech Giant work cultures that, exists out there and the whole point of the book is these companies are moving to where the future of work is is going and we have two options one is we can like sit and fear them or two as we can call up their work. [3:27] Their work systems and actually give them a run for their money and, thrive in the workplace that they’re dominating and for me the idea was basically get the word out there and get the information out there and that was sort of the inspiration. [3:40] Behind always day one is and then just as the book released I quit BuzzFeed, I started my own publication called Big technology I what you call it in the intro its Weekly Newsletter and podcast that covers the tech Giants and it’s sort of. Building on my work on Amazon and the other Tech Giants. Jason: [3:56] Very cool and how are you finding being a podcast hosted. Alex: [4:01] I mean I love it I just think there’s something special about being able to connect with people in a podcast I mean you guys know because you’ve been doing it for, more than three years but the relationship you have with people who are putting on your show and giving you a chance you have to give almost your undivided attention, you know when you have a show on in your in your headphones and your on a run or driving or you know going for a walk I think it’s just an amazing way to communicate with people and allows for the Nuance that I think tap it topics in the world that we’re living in today deserve so I don’t know I mean I couldn’t be more thrilled with getting into the podcast world. Jason: [4:41] Nice well speaking for ourselves. It’s way better for lazy people because you know you just hit record your ramble for a bit and you have a show like you don’t have to write all those words and you know get judged by an editor and, you know and it’s frankly harder for the audience to give you feedback so you don’t even have to hear how much the audience hated it. Alex: [5:03] Let’s see if you can work out an arrangement like that and any form of content production you got to make that happen. Scot: [5:10] Yeah I like it the just be careful about the audio Engineers they tend to be prima donnas that’s my big advice to you having done this for a while. Alex: [5:18] That’s right yeah got to make sure that you don’t have anything clicking in the background. Scot: [5:22] Yes yes drives them crazy. Jason: [5:24] Scot hasn’t stopped fidgeting for the four years that we’ve done the show I’m just saying right, we’ve tried to buy him quieter chairs you name it we’ve tried it I apologize to all the listeners that have to do with it. Scot: [5:37] Fidgety guy. Jason: [5:38] Yeah so before we jump in the book I did, the book starts out like even in the preface you’re having this this big interview moment with Mark Zuckerberg, you you actually got it seems like really good access to a lot of the leaders in their senior management team that you wrote about. Did was there some trick to that like was that just from your what Your journalist career up to that point and and your reputation or I mean like frankly I feel like there’s a lot of other, journalists that have written books and didn’t have that kind of access you were able to secure for yourself. Alex: [6:15] Yeah I mean I wasn’t as easy as it comes across in the final Edition I can tell you guys the story quickly if you want to hear how it all came together. So I was covering Facebook for years here in San Francisco or what you know I mean I’m not in San Francisco right now but it’s where I live and, and so I told them I want to write this book based off of this interaction I had with Mark Zuckerberg and they said okay we’d be in Google said they can be in because I’ve been covering them for even longer and then the ones I didn’t have were Amazon Microsoft and Apple. And for me Amazon was going to be the key because I thought that you know if I’m writing a book about work culture Amazon has a pretty distinct in fascinating culture and for me nailing that that section of the book was going to be. [7:05] Super important so even before we actually sold the book I booked a ticket to Seattle. One way and I agreed to cats it for my friend’s moms cat lady the cat. And basically said like all right if I sell the book hopefully I’ll get access but one way or the other I’m in Seattle until I’m out with the story. And you know then we sold the book the day that I landed, and I met with Amazon PR few days later basically said look like this is going to happen. And Facebook is on board Google is on board and I’m not leaving Seattle until I’m done what do you think. What’s let you know help me make help me tell like the most complete the most accurate story and let me actually get some people on record. And they hadn’t participated in a book since the everything store which is Broad Stones book that came out I think in late 2013. For 2014 so I didn’t have high expectations but I guess they figured hey we have this reporter that’s roaming around Seattle, he’s already got these other two companies on board maybe he’s going to get you know some of the other fourth and the fifth so we might as well you know. [8:17] Get out there and tell our story you know for ourselves and you know see if he’ll incorporate some of it and honestly like you know more I the overwhelming majority of the interviews that I did for the Amazon chapter. [8:32] We’re with people who are not sanctioned through the company’s PR organization so I feel like people get the real story and, this chapter it’s not just like a sugar coated repackaging of a press release but that said, the people they did let me speak with we’re pretty invaluable I got a chance to speak with Jeff Wilkie who’s leaving but he’s their CEO of what consumer and then it from very interesting Lee Ralph her brick who was their head of, machine learning who helped bring about this like pretty fascinating automation program in the headquarters that took a lot of the work that there are people in their retail organization we’re doing, and automated it and it was great to have a conversation with him talking about how that project originated I had done some reporting outside but he was the guy that ran, and so it was great to like bring the stories I had heard and sort of get his perspective on it and then I was able to visit a couple of fulfillment centers as well, so you know I think as a reporter for me I’m always trying to tell the most complete story I think you’re missing out if you do only interviews you know outside the company, I think you’re missing out if you only take access interviews and so I think always day one is a you know if I have to say it like it’s a pretty good blend of both, I think it’s the first book ever that Amazon Microsoft Google and Facebook have participated in together an apple. Jason: [9:56] Scott Galloway is really pissed about that by the way. Alex: [9:59] I think Scott Scott’s doing fine and he blurb the book so yeah so yeah but but yeah Scott’s Kia Scott and I like I think there’s like great Synergy between the four, and the thing that I wrote I mean I his book almost inspired me right his is all about the strategy. You know what are they doing and always day one is more about how are they doing it look at the inside the work systems in the culture, but have led to produce what these companies are you know are building so yeah and I mean like lastly Apple you know as per tradition didn’t participate but I got a chance to sit down with Steve Wozniak, in a barbecue joint right outside of Cupertino and sort of. Very end of my reporting on Apple share what I have learned from him learned and and get his perspective on it so apples out but wozniak’s and I’ll take it. Scot: [10:54] Very cool the I definitely want to dig into the Amazon stuff but before we do I wanted to Fanboy a little bit on CNBC I’m a huge CNBC junkie the are you in the Silicon Valley office there with like John 14 those guys. Alex: [11:07] So I’m a contributor I’ve been appearing on CNBC as a guest for about four years and then when I left BuzzFeed you know I had an opportunity to go out and be a free agent and, work with anybody that I wanted to and CNBC and I got to talking and, we started be a pretty great connection for between the two of us were you know again like I’ve been doing all this reporting on the tech Giant’s if you look at the S&P 500 they make up 25%, of the of that index and supposed to be something that’s fairly well distributed across the economy and you have five companies taking up a quarter of it right so, obviously it underscores how important these companies are you know to overall health of business in the US and the US economy which is what cnbc’s known for us the leader in covering so, for me it was a great opportunity to go up there and be able to you know drop in when they need meat and and give my thoughts and share some of my reporting. And it’s been great so far we were a couple of months in but it’s just been a real awesome experience to be able to appear on their shows from time to time. Scot: [12:19] Yeah yeah they do a really good job I like the Silicon alley and that’s probably where you do most of your appearance on mentioned because that’s when they talk mostly Tech right. Alex: [12:26] Yeah I mean I’m still working my way into meeting everybody but honestly the number one show that I’ve been on a Squawk Box by a long shot, so you know Ike I love doing squat Buck show I feel like those host won’t let you get away with anything and there have been times where Kieran and Andrew Ross Sorkin of, called me on certain statements and we’ve had to have little discussions on are about it and honestly if you’re going to do live TV those that’s the way to do it right like. Let’s have let’s have some fun let’s you know not allow people to get away with statements without really thinking deeply about them and thinking about the repercussions and you know I feel like I learn every day I learn something every time I’m with them and, and I don’t know it’s just I walk away from each appearance saying man that was fun let’s do it again. Scot: [13:14] Yeah very cool so I could talk about that for the whole show but I don’t want to Bernard Bernard time let’s take an Amazon what were as you as you kind of dug in there’s been some writing about day one and Bezos have been pretty open about it in his shareholder letters, what were some of the surprises that you as you dug into the Amazon culture then also there was the you know there was that kind of famous New York Times article I think that, 2015 about in a kind of headline from that one was people crying at their desk and. Amazon was very unhappy with that you know what were some of the surprises that you got from your Amazon interviews. Alex: [13:51] Yeah I mean man that New York Times story we should come back to that because I think it’s pretty fascinating look I think we talked a little bit about the day one thing obviously it’s the title of my book Let’s just you know touch on it super quickly write the idea inside Amazon with day one isn’t you know work morning evening and night you know keep your foot on the gas pedal even though many people there do but day one really means like think like a start-up right don’t be burdened by Legacy keep Reinventing, and whatever Amazon does today if you have an idea of something you know to do it better just just talk about it and do it because, the companies literally operating it’s as if like it is one of those companies on its first day without the burden of we have to support our existing businesses or this is just the way we do things around here okay so you said that now here’s the question how do you do that right so it’s one thing you know all these companies have like your missions and visions of they put like some Backwater in their internet and never talk about it ever but Amazon’s really been able to live this always day one mentality and I think they like the rest of the tech Giants have been able to do it in two ways one. [15:02] Because they rethought the way that we do work and this modern era, so throughout our history throughout the history of the Work World almost all work has been done to support existing products I mean think of the factory right, you would have one guy come up with an idea like let’s make screwdrivers, and then everybody in every employee that he would hire because almost always a he right would be making in the factory making screwdrivers and if you say hey let’s make hammers they laugh at you because employee ideas, we’re just not a thing that they would pay attention to and that age then in like the 70s we moved to the knowledge economy were all of a sudden we say, all right workers are supposed to come up with ideas or we’re relying on their knowledge, but even still almost everything that people in the office do is just supporting existing products you know you might be moving numbers around in a spreadsheet but you’re not coming up with new inventions. By and large in today’s knowledge economy I think what Amazon and the tech Giants have done is sort of flipped the whole equation on their head they’ve used, technology to minimize that work supporting existing products which I call execution work and maximize the amount of time their employees have. [16:15] For inventing for coming up with new ideas, and bringing them to life and so they first reimagined work and once you re imagine working create that room, for your employees to come up with ideas you need to actually innovate on the channels that bring ideas to decision makers. I think Amazon has done a terrific job with that as well they’re famous for the vi pager process were instead of PowerPoints you know people right. [16:42] Ideas for new products down in a six-page document as a narrative single-spaced often 11 Point font calibri you know style and then they just share it through out and of course it’s good for crystallizing your thinking and catching up Executives you know really quickly on projects that you are proposing as opposed to like going through a game of telephone but what that I do what the whole concept of writing things up. Doesn’t Amazon is it just make sure that that ideas can get from. Employees to decision makers in as quick a time as possible so that’s sort of like the trifecta you know in the always day one equation right it’s think like you’re a startup don’t worry about Legacy. Use technology to minimize execution work make room for ideal work and then create channels to bring ideas from employees to decision-makers in as quick a time as you can. Scot: [17:37] So I started a company that interacts a lot with Amazon and Google and eBay and Facebook and whatnot, and it’s really interesting just from the partnership perspective to interact with all those companies because the thing that’s really amazing at Amazon is you’ll have a discussion with someone relatively senior there, and they know the details of everything and that you’ll do a similar discussion with another company and they’ll have to kind of start looping in more and more people from the from various teams you know so if you have a shipping question they’ll be well let me get Larry the shipping guy in and Sally the, payments lady in. But you’d have that same discussion with an Amazon executive and they just know the business so deeply it’s it’s a little scary sometimes and then then you’ll go you’ll think oh that’s an aberration it’s just it’s just this guy and then you’ll go, you know eight other people and they all know it just as well as the original person did you find that as you met various people. Alex: [18:32] Oh yeah I mean think about the amount of knowledge that’s contained in one of those six page documents and then how many conversations you would have to have to replicate that. And it’s totally unbelievable how well I just think about the way meetings working Amazon. In most companies would have meetings look like right you end up sitting down with a bunch of people you probably spend ninety percent of the time. Thinking about what you’ve done up until that point and 10% of the time. You know actually digging into the business and making decisions at Amazon you read that 6 pager and then that whole 90% you know figuring out what we’re doing is done by the time someone says a single word. So of course they’re going to be you know well-versed on what the business is doing just because like that’s just the way Amazon operates so, yeah I would say that the people that I spoke with had just this deep domain knowledge it was almost as if they’re all you know CEO level expertise and Amazon in a way that you don’t find elsewhere. Scot: [19:39] Yeah do you do you think that basis will let’s say he leaves do you think this culture will be so calcified in there that it will keep going or do you think eventually they’ll stagnant. Alex: [19:54] Yeah I think look the culture at the end of the day is going to come from whoever the leader is I do think like you know I do think CEOs have an outsized influence in the way the culture, operates inside a company that’s why when CEOs were like oh I wasn’t aware of how this toxic bubble happened or this toxic Behavior happened I always laugh a little bit because it’s like. Yeah okay maybe you weren’t there day-to-day but you certainly set the tone that allowed this stuff to happen. So Bezos I mean first of all I don’t think Bezos is going to leave anytime soon you know I when I was in Seattle reporting this book and in the time I’ve spoken with Amazon employees since my impression was always that Jeff Wilkie, would be the guy to take over if pesos left and milky leaving to me is sort of a clear indication that Bezos has no plan. To go anywhere anytime soon so I expect Bezos to leave that company for a long time, to come you know as for whether the culture will change here’s my prediction if it’s somebody internal it won’t change very much because they’ve seen, how that culture has been so effective in getting Amazon to where it is but like if Mark Zuckerberg took over Amazon after Bezos left you better believe it’s going to be a different company with him running the show. Jason: [21:09] Oh yeah sorry that was that was hard to imagine for a second there. Alex: [21:14] Never Say Never because actually Zuckerberg and I write about this little bit in the book but zeca Berg ask Bezos to go and Shadow him for a couple of days you know Zuckerberg had this thing and it happens common in Silicon Valley where CEOs will ask other CEOs to spend a couple of days just watching how they work. And and so Zuckerberg had Shadow Don Graham the CEO of the Washington Post and Don said you know Mark you’re not going to learn anything from me but end up being pretty you know impactful in terms of Zuckerberg ability to lead Facebook and then Don Graham eventually sells the Washington Post to Bezos but Zuckerberg knew we had a relationship even before hand and he said Dom Don you know can you introduce me to Jeff and he said sure. So Graham asked Bezos stiff Zuckerberg can Shadow him and done Graham was you know pretty involved with Facebook you as a board member and so just said okay let me make this asked and Bezos calls him up and says hey Don look it’s a great idea but the only thing more distracting than having Mark Zuckerberg follow me around all day would be having Angelina Jolie in the office, and so unfortunately we’re going to have to pass on this idea and why when I brought it up to Zuckerberg he seemed like absolutely dejected he’s like yeah you didn’t let me in I was so funny. So anyway I don’t think it’s such a random idea you know maybe Zuckerberg snake doc next ACT is doing some sort of e-commerce business. Jason: [22:41] No I’ve not maybe at that level of CEO but there have been a couple like pretty public examples of these CEO swaps we’re not just shadowing each other but where they trade jobs for a week which is pretty funny and Illuminating. Alex: [22:55] Yeah that’s a fun hypothetical what happens to Facebook if Zuckerberg if Bezos runs it for a week what happens to Amazon if Zuckerberg gets his hands on the thing for for a week or two that might be interesting. Jason: [23:07] Yeah I have a hypothesis but I maybe I’ll save it for later in the conversation I do want to unpack a couple things so first of all you do right. A lot about the engineers mind and it’s kind of a thread throughout like a number of the. The Deep Dives and I certainly think of Jeff as a, as an engineer although he’s not a formal engineer but as having an engineer’s mind and so I always wondered why he doesn’t call it Day Zero instead of day one that’s has always bugged me. Alex: [23:40] Well that’s right I mean yeah we got to take points away from besos. Jason: [23:44] All the coders are pissed because day. Alex: [23:45] Believe yeah he is a trained engineer though he just hasn’t worked in it for a while. Jason: [23:50] Fair enough. Alex: [23:51] Education is in engineering yeah. Jason: [23:53] Yeah so. One of the things that’s been fascinating to me and maybe we have to jump into another part of the Amazon story that you wrote about and hands off the wheel but but hold just a sec on that right like you talked in the beginning and this to me is like one of the fascinating insights from the book that you know just this whole evolution of, hey in the industrial revolution it was all about execution and you could add the most value by being good at execution and ideas were like almost. Not useful and then you know ideas where a small percentage and and you know today we’re in this culture where ideas are the most difficult thing to replicate and we can. You know frankly execution is easier it’s easier to Outsource and increasingly you can automate it and throw a i at it. And so. In the context of the Amazon story you you sort of have the example of a program than Amazon run called ran called hands off the wheel and when I let you explain it and then I’ll pick back up. Alex: [24:56] Yeah and you guys asked up the top like what the most interesting thing I found in the book was and hands off the wheel no doubt was it so I heard some Rumblings that Amazon was automating. White-collar work and its retail organization and I thought okay well this is something to investigate, and it turns out that they’ve been running this program called hands off the wheel it was originally called project Yoda by some people and they’re saying basically instead of having Amazon’s retail employees the vendor managers. You know do things like order products and figure out their pricing and do inventory management and even negotiate with vendors, we can hand that all off to machine learning based off of all the data that they had. So they started it around 2012 where they said hey like we have almost two decades of data at our disposal. Can we figure out the way to do this work that our vendor managers would with technology instead. And it took a little bit of time but eventually they are predictions got pretty good and so those predictions started to end up in the retail employees software tools were instead of them like typing in, you know where they wanted to, you know put certain units of product the a I would suggest it and they could either say yes or override it. [26:22] And then at a certain point right around 2015-2016 Amazon’s executive said hey these predictions are pretty good, and instead of giving our employees a chance to override them in the system’s why don’t we let them make the actual calls and then see what happens and allow them to learn, they can adjust the machine learning tools and so they said essentially take your hands off the wheel. And they gave them pretty high goals some employees told me as much as eighty percent of all the work that they used to do was now handed off to machines and basically what they would do. Is audit and just say okay did you get it right and you know are there trends that we that the machines don’t know that we should try to account for like for instance you could have 30 years of historical, knowledge but not retail knowledge but when something like a fidget spinner becomes hot how do you then, let the algorithm know that it should start ordering some fidget Spinners because it’s not going to know but on its own it does nothing to work with. So Youmans actually became more Auditors and doers and eventually their work became much less important inside Amazon. [27:30] And so typically when you hear stories like this you’re just like oh those people are gone owners like obviously the company fires them but the amazing thing about this story inside Amazon is instead of firing these employees. Amazon just made you know many of them product managers and program managers basically professional inventors inside the company. Where they said okay well your jobs automated but we still need you to build new things and it’s this prototypical example of a company using technology to minimize execution work right because like, you’re buying stuff but you know doing inventory management inside Amazon was basically supporting an existing product that could run on autopilot you know anyway. And it gave them time to come up with new ideas so it maximized idea work and allowed for reinvention and that’s sort of been to me one of the main secrets to Amazon success over the years and your listeners will know it’s not the only thing but I think it’s certainly one of the big headlines, that’s enabled Amazon to stay on top for so long. Jason: [28:29] I know for sure I mean I basically my career is helping people compete with Amazon right and most of the unsuccessfully and I totally agree with the the fundamental premise of your book. You know clients are always asking me like what what Amazon’s fundamental advantages and they’re like is it you know the massive fulfillment capability they have or the huge product category catalog they have or the, you know the flywheel and Prime and now you know those are all super valuable things, but but my firm belief is that their biggest fundamental Advantage is their corporate agility and their ability to just. Evolve and react faster than other companies and it’s largely because of a lot of the principles that you captured in the book. Um but what I’m not convinced about I’ll just be honest is the hole. Repurposing of these employees so I so I had an interesting view to hands off the wheel my many of my clients were the brands that sell on Amazon and they hated hands off the wheel right because. If you think about it if you’re a consumer packaged good company you sell the Walmart and Target and Amazon and the way you are good at your job is, you you got those buyers to come to lunch with you and you built personal relationships and you you know you hope that you influence them to buy a little bit more of your product instead of the other guys. [29:53] And so as Hands on the Wheel started getting implemented those those vendors. Lost a human to talk to and to smoother than to wine and dine and it became this ridiculous thing like, haha my competitor lost their Vendor Manager but we’re so big we still have one, and I always had to break the news to you yeah you have one but they they don’t do anything they just go to lunch with you and then the hands off the wheel algorithm still decides how much of your stuff to buy. So it’s. I’m curious Amazon’s famously good at hiring people and they have super high standards they have this whole bar razor program which I’m sure you ran into so so they they used all that to hire the best vendor managers they could hire. And then they obsoleted that job which was totally to their credit. Presumably the people that they hired as the best vendor managers are not the best inventors or idea people and so it. Like I haven’t seen evidence that it’s not working for them obviously but it just like him like in my mind fundamentally it seems like. Huh hiring a bunch of people is buyers and then turning them into program managers and product managers because you obsoleted their job doesn’t on its face sound like a recipe for Success like it seems like you could hire better program managers. Alex: [31:15] Yeah well let me yeah let me give the counter-argument here right. I fully agree with you that this experience has been frustrating for first party vendors with Amazon no doubt about it. But it also happened in a broader context where Amazon was saying okay we’ve we’ve rode the first party Marketplace to a certain point, for us to be able to expand to the next point we’re going to need to really foreground the third-party Marketplace and our fulfillment and Logistics services, so it changed the business definitely changed right but this is again the whole idea that you think about when it comes to all these day one is are you going to hang on to your asset. Milk it for all it’s worth or are you going to build for the future may Microsoft’s a good example Microsoft’s number one asset was Windows for a long time. [32:04] And it became the number one desktop operating system company in the world and remained so long after desktop operating systems were an important anymore because mobile operating systems became the most important operating systems in the world and only after realized to let go of its asset then it sort of was able to reinvent himself as a cloud services provider. And became what it is today as opposed to what it was just a few years ago, laughing stock so yeah Amazon did definitely meet transform itself in that way and those Transformations are in Easy they’re painful, I mean think about how terrible people in the windows division felt inside Microsoft after they were like the kings of the castle for you know their whole lives and then they realized that they were just kind of, on the outside looking in. [32:51] And so yeah from a from a first party vendor situation it’s painful and doesn’t doesn’t feel right and might look like Amazon is blowing its lead but it was also this part of this necessary transformation that happened you know maybe before it needed to but kept Amazon, you know moving forward in a way that’s helped it. Maintain its dominance today to Second point of your question I’m going to give a broader answer and then a more specific answer the broader answer is, I think in today’s economy we have to stop looking at people as like you know folks who do one thing and of course yes specialization is important and it takes time to learn, to learn you know sector specific skills but on the other hand all of our economy is becoming more abstract you know you have to be able to be nimble and think about things differently and you know maybe move to a couple of different jobs throughout your career I remember Basil’s was sitting with. Walt Mossberg at the recode conference or maybe it was all things D at that point and you know. [34:02] Basis was talking about her work at Amazon you need to be open to change and if you’re not interested in change. Of course you should find a more stable career. I mean the joke is that there are no more stable careers like that like one of the things he said is go you know become an insurance adjuster and Walt Mossberg said well they use iPads now and basil said Insurance soon enough they’ll be using machine learning and it’s true, right now insurance is the field where. Jason: [34:30] The Drone flies over the hurricane area and writes all the adjustments now like a hundred percent. Alex: [34:36] Yeah I know I know I’m you know rambling on a bit but I do really think that so so yes if you are a you know. Fire that’s that’s the type of career that you want to have you’re going to have some trouble but if you thinking more broadly about being an adult being the person who could succeed in this economy, it’s not about job functions it’s about skills and thought process which Amazon certainly teaches then you can Thrive okay here’s the more specific example. Dilip Kumar who was the head of pricing and promotions inside Amazon went on to become bezos’s technical advisor Shadow him for a couple of years. And by the time that student was up his old you know domain was on its way to getting automated through it was then project Yoda and eventually hands off the wheel. And so we had an option here could go there and sort of see his job become obsolete or he could try to invent something new and he ended up leading or being one of the members that led the team that built Amazon go which is Amazon’s check out free. Convenience store and soon-to-be Supermarket I believe that sort of came out of this idea can we eliminate the most annoying part of shopping in real life and that’s checkout, and and they didn’t I mean you guys I’m sure I’ve been inside of the ghost tours they’re freaking magic and they you feel like you’re stealing every time you go in. [36:01] And turns out that, you know that that turned out to be one of the next big moves that Amazon’s making every time you hear Bezos talk about it you hear how it’s the future for the company so I don’t necessarily buy the idea that if you, do a retail core retail function you can’t be an inventor I think Kumar is a good counter example for that. Jason: [36:23] For sure. Alex: [36:24] And yeah I just think that this is sort of the way that we’re heading and the. Jason: [36:28] No no and that’s fair enough and I’m sure Amazon would would rightly point out and I think Google and others are even more on this way of like a lot of that bar razor is less about job-specific skills and more about, cognitive ability and problem-solving and things like that that would apply to multiple job so I’m sure a portion of that is totally fair, um I do there’s one other theme in here that’s kind of fascinating to me like if you think about hands off the wheel and you you kind of described it really well I can’t remember is in your book we haven’t mentioned it yet but you also wrote a great hbr article specifically about the hands off the wheel component of Amazon, the first phase of hands out the wheel was tools for the merchant right so you know originally the merchant has black magic and only he can figure out because back then it was always a he, how many how many widgets to buy from a vendor and put on the website right and so then, we get this AI algorithm that suggest how many he or she should order. But it still was ultimately up to the the human and human could override that system and I think you wrote that they discovered that the human overrode the system way too often and So eventually. They got to the point where it was a hundred percent the the system and they you know ultimately were able to solve for all four most are all edge cases. Um the in analogy to that also in the Commerce industry do you follow Stitch fix at all. Alex: [37:56] I dabble. Jason: [37:57] Yeah so Stitch fix is you know in a parallel retailer but kind of their part of their magic is personal stylist for every customer that gets to know that customer and make custom recommendations and early on they hired the the, chief. Intelligence officer from Netflix that had written the Netflix product recommendation engine and invested heavily in a i for Stitch fix and so they have, you know this this Tier 1 machine learning product recommendation engine that takes all these attributes from the customer and recommends, fixes or products for them but but Katrina the CEO at Stitch fix hit has been adamant. The customer wants to deal with a human so we’re never going to just send the recommendations from the algorithm we’re always going to have a stylus that. Presents those recommendations and has a chance to sort of override or curate those recommendations so and in a way that’s what like that interim version of hands off the wheel felt like to a lot of my my clients right like, they gave my clients a human being to make my client feel better but in reality the work was being done by the algorithm and I’m curious if you think. Over time are we all going to learn that the algorithms are better like well will there come a point at Stitch fix when they’d be better off to say, we have world-class math picking your products instead of you know a moderately paid employee. Alex: [39:26] Right for a high dollar product like that you probably want a blend of both so you want the AI to be so good that the stylist doesn’t have to go back a thousand times to get you something that you like, because each one of those moments is an opportunity to that you know to lose money for Stitch fix and to annoy the customer, and so you get the AI really good and then yeah you work in conjunction as a person and the human being becomes this concierge you know on top of the AI That’s using that to end up, making the recommendation of the client and I do think that model you know this idea that. That you know everything’s going to be automated and all the humans will go away, no I’m not I’m not ascribe to that I think we’re still going to have very important job for humans but it might be something that’s more interesting right, that is something like you know be the stylist or be the concierge from Stitch fix that speaking to you know speaking of the customer, that sounds like a much more interesting job than like being the person that runs into the back and, you know keeps getting different things for people to try on and be the person that puts the order in to bring it from the warehouse. Jason: [40:38] Or that re folds the clothes to put them back on the Shelf after they leave. Alex: [40:42] Because if the AI can minimize the amount of times the stylist in the person needs to go back to try to find the right fit then is doing its job perfectly. Scot: [40:49] Freckles that’s a we want to leave some for people to buy the book so that’s good good overview of the Amazon you also cover Microsoft Facebook and apple what interesting kind of cultural conclusions we’ve got kind of anchor of Amazon now did you draw from those conversations. Alex: [41:07] Yeah well I think the main thing that I learned was the leaders of these companies operate a little differently. Then I imagined you know the world-class CEOs operating I mean maybe I came to Silicon Valley with this idea that. Everyone was going to be Steve Jobs and sort of you know not give a shit about what anyone thinks and sort of stand up on the table in the middle of the campus with the megaphone, Park a bunch of orders and demand people, follow their Vision but I think that that would be a misconception because you having spent time with people like Zuckerberg and been in and around the offices of Google and Microsoft and. You know touched on Amazon of course and apple to some extent like what I found is that these leaders are really terrific at eliciting feedback and it starts with the very first story in the book where I go in. Sit down with Mark Zuckerberg and typically your, you know your average conversation with the CEO as a reporter is you know you sit down they lecture you for about 25 minutes and the pr person in the room monitors your facial expressions and, you know if you look concerned they say thanks for coming we’ll see you again sometime soon and you know if you look at some what engaged they might give you a time for a question or two. But when I came in to meet Zuckerberg he immediately starts asking for feedback. [42:25] And I was like what’s going on like this is is this a weird way of trying to sell a song you know what he’s trying to say. And then I ended up just going and speaking of Facebook employees as we tend to do in this line of work and found that feedback is just built into everything that Facebook does so. There are posters on the walls in the office you know back when that was a thing that’s a feedback is a gift and. Once a two-day trainings for employees to learn how to give and receive feedback major meetings ends with a request for it and I think this is important because it means that. [43:00] When you’re so comfortable sharing ideas with your colleagues are sharing Thoughts with your colleagues. You’re not going to hold ideas for good products back and I certainly found inside Facebook and elsewhere in the tech Giants that when that sort of behavior is enabled people aren’t shy they actually believe what you say, and they feel hurt and they’re going to come out and tell you things that you know might save your business one day and it certainly has happened for Facebook a couple of times. Scot: [43:27] What you think about the Facebook go fast and break stuff and they have the of the hacker mindset and all this kind of hacker kind of stuff on all around. Alex: [43:36] Yeah so ice actually spoke to Zuckerberg about this. He maintains that move fast and break things is not like actually like break Society it was more just like you know push code as fast as you can to the site. And I mean speed building the speed has always been important for Facebook and why is that important for Facebook I think it’s because social media is the most fickle of all, product categories product categories in the world. You know we’ve gone through so many different social media apps with Facebook itself is losing interest with teen users pretty fast and one social media networks are social media platforms start to shrink it’s very difficult for them, to build back in fact I think Twitter is really the only one that sort of lost users and then, brought them back and you know I mean who knows what the data says that Donald Trump isn’t necessarily responsible for it but, you know I don’t think it’s one account I think its new environment around his presidency that certainly helped you know Twitter revive you know so that said like. [44:41] Facebook needs to invent fast because if it doesn’t do that it’s going to it will really be dead and it has reinvented itself numerous times throughout its history from an online directory to sort of this broadcast platform where you write something on your wall, and everybody you’ve ever met in your life and their friend see it and now it’s transforming again to a series of smaller more intimate networks with groups and the messaging. So you know when it comes to like Zuckerberg move fast and break things like you know you might call it the unfortunate you know phrase that sort of you know stuck with Facebook as it has gone and broken stuff in a big way. But it really captures both sides right they build fast they release products before they’re ready. And oftentimes when they do that it has negative repercussions on society no do I think that they’re working to fix that I think there’s at least an effort inside Facebook, I’d like to see it expanded but I don’t think they’re as unconcerned with what happens to society afterwards as they had been in the past. Jason: [45:42] Very cool at that point in your book I so you cover it Amazon you covered those other companies and then the book takes what I’m going to jokingly call a dark turn. And that’s because you write a chapter about Black Mirror which is a very dark dark show but the premise about why you bring that up is, you introduced the hypothesis that science fiction writers are probably better at predicting the future then corporate employees and I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit more about about that hypothesis. Alex: [46:20] Yeah so definitely so first of all like I’m a big fan of the show Black Mirror obviously have watched it predict lots of different things that happened, and will probably continue to be prescient in terms of what’s going to happen in our world but look I’m writing this book always day one from like a standpoint of these are work systems that. I’ve helped the tech Giants in a big way and we ought to know about them and Co-op them so we’re able to be competitive in their world, and I’m bullish on the systems but the other side of that is that like everyone who goes out and approaches Tech in a way saying this is positive and only positive has been wrong because there’s always downsides to it. And so what I decided to do was to bring in a science fiction writer and while go Nim who helped start the Arab Spring, and who now has some reservations about the impact of social media on the world even though he used Facebook largely to help stoke. The revolution in Egypt and said let’s look at some of the uses of technology in the book and see where they could go wrong and I think just to push it home. [47:32] Inside Amazon they write these narratives the six pagers that we’ve talked about and that your listeners I’m sure extremely familiar with. And one Amazon employed ex-employee told me it was like, it was like writing science fiction when you wrote these things because it was a story of something that’s going to happen that doesn’t exist yet and that’s largely what you do in the tech world is you dream something up that doesn’t exist then you go and build it. But the thing about the tech industry stories as they always end happily and you have to do that for a reason right you’re in a company you’re tasked with building stuff. You want to think about the successful case in build towards that but often that makes you blind to the negative. [48:09] And the amazing thing is once you put a couple science fiction writers actual science fiction writers on the problem people who are used to thinking dark and dark ways, you’re going to be a thousand times more likely to catch the liabilities in your products, then you would otherwise and so I found it to be an incredibly useful and interesting exercise at the end of the book when I was done with my reporting to bring these folks in. And for me you know I’m just like you know an author of a book doing one dinner with these folks so imagine how, amazing their perspective would be inside a tech company that’s actually actively building the future every day. And I do believe that we need many more science fiction writers working inside Tech doing exactly this thing like looking for liabilities looking where things could go desperately wrong in the future and then helping these companies look out for the problems before they happen. Scot: [49:06] Well that’s a good jumping-off point so if we if you kind of take what you’ve learned and projected out maybe it’s three five ten years do you know do you think it’s like 95% probability these dark mirror scenarios come true where you know we’re being surveilled all the time and Alexa devices are recording our every word or do you think that, there’s at least some probability that that we have a more utopian future. Alex: [49:31] Yeah well we are being surveilled all the time and Alexa devices are recording or every word they’re just I guess deleting them after 10 seconds. But you know I think that at the end of the day in a capitalist Society. The tech Giant’s right now are good example that they will push the limit to about the edge but they won’t go over it because they know there’s just going to be a backlash among the customers like. Ultimately you know if your Amazon’s number one leadership Principle as you guys know customer Obsession right. And you know you’re obviously obsessed with giving customers a good experience low prices wide selection and fast delivery, and so like the data that Amazon collects is used in service of that I don’t think Jeff Bezos like sits on his iPad at the end of the night or is like you know there’s one remaining Kindle Fire and. Decides to you know figure out which Amazon user he’s going to spy on. Just for kicks in fact now he knows what it’s like to be spied on after his photos were stolen off of his phone, or off of his his girlfriend’s phone in some way anyway look I think that like we that detect Giants need some form of data collection in order to exist every every company today, really need some form of data collection to exist I mean I run a newsletter business and I have to collect emails you know that’s Pi I so. [50:58] So it’s important part of the way our economy works today on the other hand like I don’t I don’t expect. You know this widespread nefarious use of data to become. And you know we’re definitely going to need a strong press to watch some of the ways things go wrong like I do have some concerns about. The way that Amazon handles the data that comes off of their ring doorbells for instance but ultimately like. These companies are here to serve consumers and, you know if consumers know that you know there are echoes show is I don’t know if that’s still what it’s called her, but whatever the Echo Show is spying on them in their bedroom and like Amazon employees are you know watching me sleep, they’re going to go to Google so ultimately I think that’s the thing that keeps this baby more than anything else. Jason: [51:53] You know coincidentally Amazon had a big product announcement today they launched a bunch of their newest Echo products and they an ring products and they had a lot of new software features and a lot of the software features. We’re mostly around cleaning up a lot of that privacy stuff so for example. You The Echoes all have better more powerful chips in them now so they can do more of the speech recognition. In the devices so they send less actual data over the network than they used to, but they built in these cool new features like you can say Alexa forget everything I’ve ever said or forget everything I said in the last hour or things like that that. You know they didn’t used to have and they done full in and encryption on drink so I will give them credit for, first starting to address some of those and it occurred to me as you were you were talking you know there are a couple of these big tech companies that have hired science fiction writer so I think like. Ray Kurzweil famously works for Google and I met this guy Peter Schwartz who’s, I wasn’t familiar with them but he’s a cool futurist that like. [53:06] Invented a lot of the experiences in Minority Report like including the you know though II scanning in the Gap store and all that stuff and he’s a full-time futurist for Salesforce. So I think it is your hypothesis may already be true I think they may already be starting to sort of a dad that thought process to there. Corporate knowledge base. Alex: [53:28] Yeah that’s great I applaud anyone that does that and it’s a two-parter right the first thing that is you hire the science fiction writers are the dark thinkers and the second part is you listen to them. And so we just got to make sure that these companies if they telling us they’re hiring science fiction writers at their coming through on the second half of that equation as well. Jason: [53:47] Hundred percent and I’m sure we’ll see some where they only do the first half. Alex: [53:52] It’s a nice press release. Jason: [53:53] Yeah and that’s a great point and that’s actually going to be a great place to leave it because it’s happen again we’ve used up all our allotted time, but Alex we certainly enjoyed chatting with you if listeners have any further questions or comments about the show we sure would appreciate a comment on our Facebook page or hit us up on Twitter and as always if you enjoyed this episode we’d love it if you jump on iTunes and finally give us that five star review. Scot: [54:20] Alex thanks for joining us if folks want to follow you online what we’re what are your best places that you publish content. Alex: [54:28] Yeah thanks so much this was a great conversation really appreciate the opportunity to be on I would say I would recommend folks go to the big technology podcast it’s big technology podcast you can get it in any podcast app and I have a different interview up there every week everyone from you know VC’s to timbre the VC who that sorry the Amazon VP left over its treatment of whistleblowers journalists, and Founders so the whole crew comes on it’s been super fun so far as we talked about in the beginning so I’d love to see you there and if you’re interested in the book it’s always day one and you can find it at any Bookseller you could just type it into Google or Bing if that’s what you’re interested or DuckDuckGo if you don’t like being tracked as we talked about in this last segment and you’ll be able to find it and, yeah I’d love to hear your thoughts. Jason: [55:22] That’s terrific will definitely put a link to the podcast in the show notes and until next time happy commercing.

Cuando enviás tu CV a una empresa de traducción, del otro lado lo recibe la persona que ocupa el puesto de Vendor Manager, como se conoce en el gremio. Para indagar un poco más sobre este rol, invitamos a charlar con nosotras a Carmen Cisneros. Carmen estudió Traducción e Interpretación en la Universidad Jaime I en Castellón, España. Al terminar sus estudios hizo las prácticas en Xerox Gran Bretaña y trabajó en Xerox Hungría como coordinadora de proyectos de traducción durante 3 años. Más tarde, volvió a Inglaterra a trabajar como coordinadora de proveedores en otra compañía, y actualmente, supervisa la gestión de proveedores en una empresa de traducciones. Ahora ya cuenta con más de 6 años de experiencia en la industria de la traducción, especializándose en la interacción entre traductores autónomos y agencias de traducción. En su día a día, Carmen trabaja como intermediaria entre la empresa y sus traductores, y crea nuevas relaciones con proveedores de todas partes del mundo. Lo que más le gusta de su trabajo es la gestión de la base de datos de todos los proveedores de servicios (traducción, interpretación, voiceover, etc.), que debe mantener siempre actualizada con todos los datos importantes de los profesionales (desde lo obvio, como cuenta bancaria y datos personales, hasta sus áreas de especialización o servicios que ofrece, tarifas, etc.). También se ocupa de la creación de estrategias de contratación, la negociación con proveedores, y la mejora de los procesos obsoletos. Como encargada de “recruitment”, se ocupa de buscar a profesionales de acuerdo con las necesidades que le informen los PM (gestores de proyectos) o incluso la gente de Ventas, si es que hay un cliente nuevo y se necesitan profesionales con determinado perfil. En su tiempo libre escribe artículos relacionados con la industria y administra el grupo de LinkedIn Translation Vendor Management que creó para facilitar un canal de comunicación con otras personas dedicadas a este rol, pero también pueden participar traductores independientes y gestores de proyectos. A ella le gusta compartir ideas propias, artículos que encuentra interesantes, ofertas de trabajo, y todo lo que ayude a acortar la distancia entre traductores y agencias. “Bridge the gap” dice que es su objetivo, porque sabe que a menudo hay cierto desconocimiento que provoca desconfianza o malentendidos. Carmen incluso ofrece su ayuda en LinkedIn a quienes quieran enviar su CV para recibir un feedback sobre cómo mejorarlo, así que obviamente le preguntamos qué consejos tiene para armar un buen currículum. Es decir, un CV que contenga la información que importa y que busca quien lo recibe. Ella recalca que no le importa tanto el diseño sino la información clave: qué es lo que podés aportar concretamente. Frases como “tengo las mejores tarifas” o “cumplo con los plazos de entrega” son muy vagas y no dicen nada de vos como proveedor de servicios. Lo que sí importa es en qué áreas tenés experiencia, o qué temas te interesan, qué es lo que estudiaste, qué cursos tomaste, si tenés una certificación como la de la ATA, por ejemplo, y hasta un deporte o hobbie que practiques. La pregunta del millón es “¿qué pongo si no tengo experiencia? Lo que te interesa, lo que hiciste durante tu carrera, cualquier trabajo de voluntariado que hayas hecho, todos los cursos de capacitación o charlas a las que hayas asistido, incluso cualquier otro trabajo que hayas tenido. Así fue como entramos al tema de las pruebas de traducción. Carmen dice que, aunque ella cree que no son extremadamente necesarias, sí son importantes para la empresa porque de momento es la mejor forma que tienen para evaluar a un potencial proveedor con quien van a hacer negocios, por lo cual no solo se evalúa la traducción, sino también otros aspectos como el trato, el cumplimiento de fechas de entrega e instrucciones, y hasta aspectos de personalidad que podrían indicar la compatibilidad (o falta de) con la empresa.

In this episode, product manager Niki Patel talks about the new Vendor Manager Workspace application. This app helps vendor managers by aggregating vendor data from across the platform and providing analytics to help monitor and evaluate vendor performance. This episode covers: What is vendor management? What does Vendor Manager Workspace do? Beyond the old Vendor Performance app Aggregating vendor data and evaluating performance Getting started What’s in store in future releases? For more information, see: Product documentation: Understanding the Vendor Manager Workspace experience Community blog: Digital transformation and the role of your vendors Community blog: Vendor Management Workspace Overview Your feedback helps us serve you better! Did you find this podcast helpful? Please leave us a comment to tell us why or why not.

In this episode, product manager Niki Patel talks about the new Vendor Manager Workspace application. This app helps vendor managers by aggregating vendor data from across the platform and providing analytics to help monitor and evaluate vendor performance. This episode covers: What is vendor management? What does Vendor Manager Workspace do? Beyond the old Vendor Performance app Aggregating vendor data and evaluating performance Getting started What’s in store in future releases? For more information, see: Product documentation: Understanding the Vendor Manager Workspace experience Community blog: Digital transformation and the role of your vendors Community blog: Vendor Management Workspace Overview Your feedback helps us serve you better! Did you find this podcast helpful? Please leave us a comment to tell us why or why not. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Genus och jämställdhet är en av de svåraste och mest komplexa frågorna som finns att adressera, men vi måste våga prata om det utan att det betyder att man blir rädd för att på något sätt göra eller säga fel. Vi måste sudda ut gränserna för att skapa rätt attityd och inkludera varandra för att hitta styrkan hos varje individ. Välkommen till Techradar – Din portal och ledstjärna inom IT och tech, där vi pratar djupt och brett med härligt surr och mycket skratt. Det här är framtidens podcast 2.0 – Nu kör vi! Detta specialavsnitt är en liveinspelning från ÅF Offshore Race Village på Skeppsholmen i Stockholm, där vi tillsammans med Aruba Networks presenterade, förutom livepodden, lösningar för det som att idag är lika självklart som luften vi andas - det trådlösa nätverket. På scen vår programledare Micke Thunander, till vardags komiker med förkärlek till prylar och teknik, med gästerna Åsa And Deshaume, Vendor Manager på Dustin och Anna Mourou Lange, grundare av She Captain. I dagens avsnitt kommer vi inte prata prylar utan något mycket viktigare, vi kommer att prata om hur vi får fler tjejer till vår bransch och hur vi kan lära oss av hur andra branscher jobbar med att få fler tjejer intresserade.

John Pistone is the Senior VP of Ecommerce Development at Geneva Supply. He is the newest employee of Geneva Supply. He spent the last few months working for a Sales Representative firm that helps manufacturers sell their products on Amazon. He spent the majority of the time helping them organize their operations to be more efficient and prioritize appropriately. Before that, he was at Amazon for 11 years in Retail Business roles including Vendor Manager, Instock Manager, Category Leader and Director of Leadership Development and Training. He's most proud of creating process and systems to objectively measure performance for Amazon Retail employees-over 17,000 people were using the products my team built. Before Amazon, he worked as a District Manager at The Home Depot as part of their Store Leadership Program. And before The Home Depot served as an Infantry Officer in the US Army. He has an MBA from Boston College and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and a Bachelor of Science from The United States Military Academy at West Point. He also have a Certificate of Product Development from the University of California, Berkeley.  About BizTank Career Exploration Program BizTank provides local Junior and Senior high school students an opportunity to gain exposure to the world of business through a stimulating and interactive program. Consisting of three unique eight-week seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall), meeting once a week on Wednesday nights. Sessions are spent covering a range of topics, such as startups, marketing and on-trend business subjects. In addition, students record, edit and create their own episodes for the Kids in the Tank Podcast. For more information visit us online at https://biztanknonprofit.org/

This is Part 2 of my talk with Robin Cutler, Director of IngramSpark, the professional publishing and distribution platform for independent authors. In this episode, we focus on distribution. IngramSpark has the widest distribution in the world, but we also talk about why you'd want to go direct with Amazon KDP Print (formerly CreateSpace) and how to make that happen without any problems.  You'll also learn how long it takes the stores to populate your book information - not every store is the same - and how this affects your book launch plan. Find out what bookstores expect and how to attract your local independent bookstore with the right discounting and, of course, a professionally produced book. Robin Cutler began her publishing career as Assistant Director of USC Press and than became founder and CEO of Summerhouse Press. She helped develop BookSurge, an early self-publishing tool that was acquired by Amazon and became Vendor Manager for Amazon/CreateSpace. When she is not traveling to represent IngramSpark at writing and publishing events worldwide, she works, writes, reads and lives in beautiful New Mexico. 

Learn about IngramSpark, the professional publishing tool from Ingram and its evolution from Lightning Source. You'll find out about free resources on the site for cover design templates, standard trim sizes, and a publisher compensation calculator to find out what your costs and profits will be when you distribute with IS. My talk is with Robin Cutler, Director of IngramSpark at Ingram Content Group. She is the former Assistant Director of USC Press and founder and CEO of Summerhouse Press. She helped develop BookSurge, an early self-publishing tool that was acquired by Amazon, and then became Vendor Manager for Amazon/CreateSpace. When she is not traveling to represent IngramSpark at writing and publishing events worldwide, she works, writes, reads and lives in beautiful New Mexico.  We talk about trim size standards for novels, children's books, and coffee table books. How to choose paper color (creme or white?) and weight (50, 60, and up) and the additional costs incurred with heavier paper weight. You'll also learn about creating books with "spot" color vs "full" color. Should you pay POD prices "as you go" or order a large number of books to save money? Where are the price breaks for high-quality digital POD copies of your book? If you're considering a hardback book—and we think you should—what are your choices? When do you choose case laminate or a jacket? We talk about setup fees and change charges, which don't apply to metadata changes and you'll find out why. (Hint: We love experimenting with metadata and we think you should, too.) This is just the first half of my talk with Robin. Next week, in part two, we talk all about distribution. 

Welcome to Episode 29th of Dreams Inspire Reality Podcast! Season 2. We're delighted to have our new guest, Rovina Broomfield, who is passionate about business strategy, entrepreneurship, and inspirational leadership. She is a Senior Product Manager leading a product development team within global marketing and advertising, responsible to build and launch sub-segment customer experiences. For example, her team launched Amazon’s Textures & Hues, a shop for textured hair care from concept to the platform. In March 2018, She was the recipient of Amazon's Just Do It award from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, for the launch of Textures & Hues. The “Just Do It Award” recognizes and rewards employees who exemplify two of their core values.  In addition to her role, Rovina is also President of Amazon’s Black Employee Network, which primarily serves to provide a support structure for Black employees and to champion diversity throughout the company. Prior to her current role, she has been a Vendor Manager in outdoor apparel and action sports, operations manager in home goods, and a product manager in the Global Alexa Echo devices sales and marketing team. Outside of work, Rovina enjoys playing basketball, listening to live music, and speaking to students of color and young adults about developing positive leadership habits and pushing through the constructs of the corporate world. On today's episode, Rovina walks us through the process of how she started Fiber Sole a faith-based apparel brand; how she balances her professional career and managing the Fiber Sole; and the biggest lessons she's learned since launching. Also, she shows us the keys to a having a successful business from the perspective of having ‘must-win customer’ and having a process in decision-making. Moreover, a detailed information on what Textures & Hues of Amazon really is, why it's a valuable place to go and the unique things about it, how to get your products into the Textures and Hues program and why there was a need to create this program. She believes that focusing on 'why not me and why not now' helps her succeed in her career and as an entrepreneur!   Connect with Rovina Website Instagram Fibersole Promo Code: enter promo code 'DREAMS' at checkout for 20% off your total order, now through 12/31/2018  Amazon Textures & Hues

In the last six years I (Joe) have only had two people tell me that Vendor Central is a great opportunity for Amazon sellers to grow their business. The first was at IRCE in Chicago in 2015 when an ex-Amazon Vendor Central executive told me his view of Vendor Central. The next time – was on this podcast. Both opinions were very favorable! And you know…I believe them both. If I owned an Amazon FBA business or was purchasing one, I would look very closely at Vendor Central and at least test it out with a SKU or two. That's right – you do not have to make the leap of faith with Vendor Central. At least not any more. According to our guest expert, Fahim Naim, Vendor Central is a viable option that most Seller Central sellers should consider. He openly states it is not for everyone, yet he took his first client from $4,000,000 in Q4 revenues to $16,000,000 by expanding the customer reach using the Vendor Central tools. Do I need to say more? Yes (apparently)…you do not need to be selling 4m per quarter to make Vendor Central work for you. Listen to Fahim's expert advice and make your own decision, it could be the best investment of time you have ever made. Episode Highlights: Hear firsthand how Fahim's Clients have done when engaging with Vendor Central. You don't have to make a “leap of faith” and leave Seller Central. If you haven't gotten an invite to Vendor Central – find your representative and contact them. Learn how to get more attention from a hugely overwhelmed Amazon representative. Vendor Central is not right for every product or seller. Some categories are more competitive and require higher volumes to be accepted to Vendor Central. Vendor Central is not just for brands…distributors can use it as well. “Seller Central” on steroids…that is what Vendor Central is. Links: www.eshopportunity.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahimnaim/ 10 Tips When Considering Vendor Central Transcription: Mark: Joe how are you? Joe: I'm doing great Mark. How are you, sir? Mark: Good, good I heard you explored the depths of the mysterious Vendor Central recently? Joe: Yeah. Listen, the good, the bad, the great Amazon sellers that we know…that we've talked to over the last decade for the vast majority they all say no way don't lose control to Vendor Central, don't do it, don't do it. When you when I went to IRCE in Chicago in 2015 I talked to somebody that was an ex-Amazon Vendor Central manager, he's the first person that ever told me that it was great and that he could double somebodies business using vendor Central and I believed him. We never reconnected afterwards; this guest today is the second one. His name is Fahim Naim, he's from…originally he was an Amazon Category Manager and he left and went and started his own company called ‎eShopportunity. And he gave me one example and this is a huge one so don't get scared away if you're doing $50,000 a month in revenue listeners. His first client he took and quadrupled the revenue in Q4 alone by using Vendor Central Tools. So he took it from 4 million dollars a quarter to 16 million by using Vendor Central. Mark: Oh wow, a huge growth. Joe: So that alone is reason enough to listen. And as firsthand information from somebody that's actually done it, and seen it, and uses it services and he's quite honest and open about it. It's not for everyone and it's not take a leap of faith and you no longer run Seller Central anymore. It used to be that way and I think that's why people feared it. He's got some great ideas on how to take just one skew and test it out and slowly move over and things of that nature. I'll make a whole lot of sense if I were a seller, if I were a buyer, I would very very closely at Seller Central. Mark: Fantastic. Well, I can't wait to get into this before we get into the episode though I'm going to make a public plea to the listeners out there. I want to know what conferences you guys go to because we like to go to conferences. We'd like to meet you so send me an e-mail at mark@quietlightbrokerage.com with your favorite conferences to go to throughout the year and I know that's completely unrelated to what we were just talking about but you mentioned the IRCE and it just sort of triggered that. All right with that, I'm actually anxious to hear this because like you I've heard the same sort of feedback from most Amazon Sellers. They're saying no way, I don't want to do it but it's really hard to ignore quadrupling revenues by jumping over there so let's get into the episode and hear what he has to say. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe with Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Fahim Naim with me on the call today. How are you Fahim? Fahim: Wonderful how about yourself? Joe: I'm doing good man. Welcome to Quiet Light Podcast. Listen, you've got a ton of experience from being at Amazon as a Category Manager and now running eShopportunity I was going to try to do the intro and talk about you a little bit but I just want to make sure it's done right. So if you could brag about yourself a little bit, tell everybody that's listening about your experience in e-commerce world, then Amazon, and now at eShopportunity that. Fahim: Wonderful. I was previously a Category Manager at Amazon, managed one of largest category at Amazon retail, managed a team of vendor managers, and one of the categories in Consumer Electronics, super sexy stuff like computer components and portfolios and things that are going to computers; very exhilarating as you can tell. Joe: That's exciting, yes. Fahim: All jokes aside it was tons of fun, it was over a half billion dollar business, they booked to double the size of my category while I was at Amazon even though the market was flat. Had a fantastic time but ultimately made the decision to leave and start my own venture. I started eShopportunity about a few years back, we wanted to help companies grow and be on the other side of the table of some of those conversations that happened at Amazon. Started off with one initial brand, hard time, we grew his Q4 business from four million dollars to 17 million dollars that year eventhough he's been set in declining he was excited, introduced me to a couple of other brands, I started tailing the team and I guess fast forward about three years we've worked with over a hundred brands to date. Some fortune 500 brands, some brands we've seen a shark tank, a bunch of startups and companies in between. Either brands that had been on Amazon for a while but really wanted to take it to the next level. Brands that have had successful businesses off of Amazon and finally wanted to launch on Amazon or a [inaudible 0:05:06.5] of the type. Joe: That's an impressive resume. You took somebody from four million to 17 million and he was only excited? I would think it'd be ecstatic. Fahim: He was probably more excited when we went on the phone. I think he did a good job keeping his poker face that I'd imagine based out of his expectations when we started he threw a pie in the sky number saying if you help me go to twenty million this quarter that would be beyond real and I was pretty angry that we fell just short of it. So my take is probably a little bit different than his. I was hoping that we could get to 20 and again his Q4 business the previous year was maybe…it was about flat to where he was that year so it was a…he had some phenomenal growth and the good news is that after I checked in whenever the project concluded the business had continued to grow. So I think a lot of Amazon is how do you start the right foundation, how do you get the things clicking, and then organically if you're doing the right things and you [inaudible 0:06:07.9] screwing up which is probably easier said than done you see that your business continues to scale which is obviously great for the business owner's standpoint. Joe: Right. Now you mentioned you manage a team of vendors and Mark and I talked in the intro about Vendor Central, you and I are here to talk today mostly about Vendor Central and your expertise in that area and why some people should start paying attention to it. As I told you I don't think I've talked to a single Amazon seller that has a seller account whether they're doing fifty thousand a month or a million or two or three or four million dollars a month in revenue, they all say there's no way I'm giving up control to Vendor Central, absolutely not and there's a huge paranoia about it. The only time I've ever heard that is a good thing is from you and from someone else that I met at IRCE in 2015. Tell us if you will with the basics what's the difference between Seller Central and Vendor Central and then let's get in to the details of Vendor Central and who's a good candidate for it and how you can help somebody grow their business by using it or how anybody that chooses to use it can use the cheat sheet that you and I have talked about that we're going to share in the notes and to go ahead and do it themselves if they want to go that route, the difference between the two as well. Fahim: Well first off, Vendor Central is often treated as a red-headed stepchild, people not very optimistic based off of what they've heard in the seller communities especially. I'm in the forums, at speaker conferences, I do a fair amount of publishing and I've similarly heard a couple of things. One is I think that's a misinformation that hopefully we will dispel at least a certain degree in just doing this podcast and some of it is probably warranted. I think the decision between Seller Central and Vendor Central depends so much on the specific details of that brand that anybody who says hands down this platform is better than that platform is probably doing you a disservice in that Seller Central certainly has some benefits, Vendor Central has some benefits. Back to the matter as most of the largest brands or the businesses that are doing the most amount of volume on Amazon all have Vendor Central. It seems to be working for people that are growing very quickly and have larger business. Yes there's probably some bias on it that a lot of those are large companies anyways and are Fortune 500 brands that sell across the board but I can't tell you the number of times we've taken a brand and got their business from a let's say a couple of hundred thousand, two or three hundred thousand dollars on Seller Central per month and got that business grow up three or four X when they made the transition to Vendor Central when all things align. Things don't always align and again we delve with the details and we'd get to that but there is certainly an opportunity. If you want to scale your business and become a five, 10, 15, 20 million dollar brand on Amazon and more, Vendor Central offers you a set of tools that are much tougher to get to than Seller Central or possibly not even available to Seller Central. So to answer your question more specifically, Seller Central you do have more control, direct control of the pricing and inventory. Seller Central they're starting to open up some of the things that used to be available just to vendors, things like A+ Content like me deals, catch deals. headline search, so certainly this becomes this a little more parity to come into the seller part [inaudible 0:09:29.8] but when you sell your products directly to Amazon Wholesale, a couple of things, one is it's not you sell it to Amazon and then take care of the rest of it. It's very similar to Seller Central in that you get a tool kit that you can use to grow your business but it's not Amazon's going to optimize your pages, Amazon's gonna run all these ads for you, Amazon's gonna give you higher search results and check out what the right pricing is for you and run promotions by themselves etcetera. Vendor Central is very similar to Seller Central in that it's how much you put in to it and you have access to tools in Vendor Central in many cases that you may not have access to on Seller Central. For example, let's talk about deals, lightning deals on Seller Central are recommended only and even that just we can't go build on the last year to; at the Vendor, you can submit a proposal. It doesn't mean it will always get approved but you can submit and be a lot more proactive on lightning deal on Vendor Central. There is something called Best Deals which most people on Seller Central don't have access to unless you have an account manager that's idea that you show up on Today's Deals Page which is the most popular page on Amazon after the homepage. And you can run a deal for up to two to even four weeks but they with less aggressive discount at the Lightning Deal. In many cases, Best Deals has been phenomenal for [inaudible 0:10:47.8] that's another option. Coupons just became available to Seller Central until a couple of months ago that had been a popular program that many vendors have utilized for a long time. Subscribe and Save Again started on Vendor Central before it became available on Seller Central. Programs like Amazon Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, Prime Pantry are primarily not exclusively focused on Vendor facing brands so that's another example. If you want to be on the homepage of the furniture page on Amazon to be…go to navigations click on Amazon Furniture Amazon Computers Components and Peripherals and there's a lot of people that search for products that way, most of those placements are available for vendors only. If you want to be on Gift Guide and Amazon has done a great job over the last couple of years holding some excitement over this idea of having a holiday gift guide we can browse through products. Because Amazon obviously has been a great place to shop if you know what you want, it hasn't been ideal if you want to browse for things and Amazon has [inaudible 0:11:46.8] most if not all the brands in many of the gift guides or vendor. So again there is a unique set of tools that vendors have of or have access to. That set is certainly not all rosy; things get a lot more complicated. You have a little bit less direct control on inventory, you get a weekly purchase sorted that Amazon cuts every week and that's the amount that you can send tens and more. You could send less although that's probably not a good idea unless you don't have inventory- [crosstalk] Joe: So you…holding on right there in terms of that inventory because as I know as people are listening to us they've probably written down twenty questions there hoping I asked. Let's just talk about that inventory for a minute. So many Amazon Seller Central folks send money to inventory directly from their manufacturer to Amazon, in this case do Vendor Central folks have to have a 3PL where they store the inventory in between and ship on a regular basis? Fahim: That's what most people do. There are some variants where you can get around that. Amazon and on the Vendor Central site has a direct import program where you can import all of your inventory likely from Asia directly to Amazon. Not the easiest thing to work with setup to be transcribed but certainly exists and I know some brands that have done well with that. I think the vast majority of brands on Vendor Central either have their own 3PL or use a separate 3PL to fulfill those orders. And in some cases, you could do a little bit of both. You can have some inventory and multiple warehouses and you get PO's from different warehouses and you have to send it to different places. So there is some level of flexibility although it tends to get a lot more complicated on how this passes works in Seller Central. Seller Central, I want to send 500 units I go on create a shipment, it will tell me what [inaudible 0:13:33.3] I want to use, I even have the option in inventory placement service dependent to just [inaudible 0:13:37.8] and I'm done. And then Amazon manages all the interactive shipments, Vendor Central doesn't- Joe: [inaudible 0:13:43.2] for [inaudible 0:13:44.0] center right? Fahim: Correct. On the Vendor Central- Joe: [inaudible 0:13:47.2] Fahim: Yes, no that's good. Stop me because I live in acronym words so if you will- Joe: Okay. Fahim: It's good to get clarity. On Vendor Central when you get a weekly Purchase Order or PO they can have you send it to eight or nine [inaudible 0:14:03.0] but sometimes less, sometimes more. So the process again works all over differently, for some brand that's not a big deal and for some brands that's probably a little bit more complex and they want to be…especially early on in the lifecycle of the business. Joe: Okay, so you just used the word brands this is in assumption maybe everybody already knows this or is thinking this that Vendor Central is really for brands, not resellers simple? Fahim: Yes or no, I think primarily most of the brand…most of the companies that are on their own brands. There are a good number of distributors that also have Vendor Central accounts. Some of the largest, most of the large distributors or many of the large distributors have Vendor Central accounts and they supply directly at Amazon. And even if you are a brand meaning manufacturer and you sell to Amazon, if Amazon consorts your product cheaper to a distributor they'll buy from the distributor in many cases. And that sometimes business pisses off brands but yes you…it could be either in the context of a lot of things I'm talking about I'm probably talking more down the brand manufacturer route but you, to answer your question you could be a distributor and have a Vendor Central account and you could be the company that's been selling Purchase Orders from a variety of different brands or distributor. I know some distributors that are doing 10, 20, 30 different vendors, different selling inventories for 10, 20, 30 different vendors- Joe: Okay. Fahim: That are not exactly their brand. Joe: Well the fear that I think a lot of the brand owners have that I speak with is that they lose control and going back to that you mentioned it they don't lose control. They still have control, they can…can they write their copy? Can they work on their keywords? Can they send organic traffic to it? Can they…and then do all of those discounts and promotions you talked about as well is it essentially Seller Central on steroids where they've just got access to more things? Fahim: I like that. I like the Seller Central on steroids, I'm [inaudible 0:15:58.2]. Yes, it's…I would argue, you probably have more control on Vendor Central than Seller Central. [inaudible 0:16:04.0] common that very often even if you're a brand registered on Seller Central, I hear it all the time brands say somebody changed my copy, somebody changed my picture, somebody changed my variation, even if you are the brand owner and you're on Seller Central there's a brand hierarchy in terms of who owns [inaudible 0:16:20.9] page edits and at the top of the list is vendors. So anybody who has an Amazon Vendor Central account has ultimate [inaudible 0:16:28.4] goes on. Even if you are the brand owner and you have a Seller Central account and you have brand registry but the distributor is selling that to Amazon and they have a vendor account, they actually have ownership over that page copy. In most cases over the brand that's on Seller Central. So I'd say you can change titles, you can change bullets, you can update images, it actually works much easier on Vendor Central than Seller Central. At Seller Central sometimes doing things like variations could be fairly complex with Vendor Central it could be as easy as a ticket and somebody would do it for you. Images similarly the turnaround time of Vendor Central is pretty good but ultimately up to you have at least as much control probably more control over your page copy, and content, and landing on Vendor Central than Seller Central. Joe: And then all of the other things that Seller Central folks do whether it's striving outside traffic, keyword optimization, discounts, reviews, YouTube social media reviewers that are talking about and driving traffic to that Amazon page they can do the same thing it's just an Amazon vendor page correct? Fahim: Correct. You can do all that and to the average customer, they can't tell the difference of a vendor and reseller. Joe: Okay. Fahim: Most people don't even realize it so yes it works the same way. You can send X number of traffic, you can run discounts, you can run promotions, all of the same- Joe: Okay. Fahim: As both cases the same way at Seller Central. Joe: Is…I mean we've got people that you know if they're doing a million dollars a month and running a lifestyle business meaning they've got some VA's and they work from home part time they don't want to really risk very much. There's no sense in going I'm going to just lose that million a month and I'm going to jump into Vendor Central. Tell us about if they're doing Seller Central what the leap is from Seller Central to Vendor Central? So they have to shut down the Seller account and then open Vendor or can they have both running simultaneously, is it a one way street? Talk to us from that perspective as if you were that guy running a lifestyle business making a million dollars in revenue on a monthly basis. Fahim: A couple of things, if I were running a lifestyle business and I was happy at my current run rate and didn't want to…if I was more risk averse I'd potentially keep it as is. If I wanted to grow that business and take it to next level I think Vendor Central becomes a lot more interesting. Joe: What's the risk part in terms of Vendor versus Seller? You said risk- Fahim: Well you know- Joe: More riskier? Fahim: Yeah if you're risk averse you already know what to expect, you know how to manage everything as the current process that takes on Seller Central. When you transition to Vendor things change. Typically for the better if everything aligns. But the way pricing works changes, the way pricing should work certainly changes, the way inventory fulfillment work changes etcetera, etcetera. At the end of the day once you get on boarded and in most cases not all cases but in most cases you do a good job in negotiating with your inventory manager which we'll talk about a couple seconds but imagine on your terms and you are not paying that net much more on Vendor Central than Seller Central I think there's a little bit less [inaudible 0:19:35.3]. If you are going into a category where your net margin expectations from Amazon is severely higher on Vendor Central than Seller Central there could be some risk that at the same amount of volume Amazon is taking a bigger cut of that. So I think there are some nuances but I think the risk is the unknown and it's a new process and you have to manage that. Joe: And do you have to shut down your Seller account or to open the Vendor Central obviously that it's not you lose days or weeks of revenue, I would assume that its very seamless. Fahm: It's semi-seamless. Amazon has changed their stance on this on the last couple of years. A couple of years ago it [inaudible 0:20:14.6] have both a Vendor and Seller Central account. And in many categories now and the Vendor Manager technically has the ability to shut down your Seller Central account if they want to. If you were doing anything to really damage your Vendor Central business, there's officially a clause that says if you sale wholesale and you have a Vendor account that they can shut down your Seller Central account. I actually haven't seen that happen although I've seen some threats but that exists for a couple of good reasons. In the last couple of years, Vendor Managers and teams at Amazon have been a lot more open to the idea of having both but being strategic about it. The idea is the Vendor Manager owns the retail or what they would call the retail part of the [inaudible 0:20:54.5] and Seller Central is almost a competitor to that Vendor Manager. And they do that to keep more competition on the platform so better for that costumer at the end of the day. So the Vendor Manager doesn't get a lot of benefit when you have a Seller Central account. If you're competing on the same skew and you have lower prices on your Seller Central it actually hurts this plus on the metrics, they're out of stock, their loss by box, a bunch of their metrics or sales are going to be a lot lower here. What many brands do today, they do which…a little bit more strategically with is I'm gonna have both the Vendor and the Seller Central account, I'm going to do some skews on Vendor Central to start. I'm gonna keep some skews on Seller Central to start and see how that process goes. Depending on how close that brand is with the Vendor Manager that person may push to get more and more of the catalog from Seller Central to Vendor Central. But think of it as like you're negotiating with a buyer at Walmart, or Best Buy, or Target, there is a lot of negotiation that goes back and forth. So maybe you decide that it's not a good idea to transition your entire catalog or maybe things are going so well and you want to everything overnight. I think that's where it's a very personal decision. For many brands the way they started, they open a Vendor Central account, get a couple of skews on Vendor Central, get used to the process and things work a little differently. One thing we should mention is pricing because a lot of people worry and I hear this misconception a lot that Amazon will lower your prices and you lose control of it. It's not really true, and what Amazon's pricing and there's certain things that I'm allowed to say and not allowed to say. Ultimately, Amazon [inaudible 0:22:23.6] in a game of let's proactively lower your price so we can sell more inventory and create a price war in the market. That's not Amazon's idea, that's actually what a ton of other retailers do and I can tell you firsthand many of the big box retailers like to put things on the go back and promotion and discount pricing. On Amazon Vendor Central if you have control over your pricing in the market, so externally and third party wise there's nobody undercutting your price, you have a lot more control on the pricing than many people think. Joe: And most of the cases I think the people listening to this podcast, they own their brand and they do not sell it to distributors so it's not going to be an issue. They're the sole person or company selling that brand so- Fahim: Yup. Joe: They're going to get their wholesale price from Amazon anyway. It doesn't really matter if the Amazon decides to sell it for two dollars above they're still going to get their wholesale price from Amazon correct? Fahim: Yes but it's a dangerous way to look at it because let's do an example. Let's say you're selling the gross sales price of [inaudible 0:23:24.6] but the price the customer pays is 20$ and I'm just making up some numbers. The price that you sell it to Amazon is 16$ net of all cost and whatnot. If you then have somebody selling your product on third party or let's say externally at Target. You have a small assortment that Target decides to lower that to 18$ or let's call it 17$, Amazon will match this 17$ likely and in your mind, you may say you know it doesn't matter Amazon paid me- Joe: [inaudible 0:23:55.9] they're not gonna buy any from you again obviously it has to be profitable. Fahim: Exactly. Joe: Yeah what I was referring to is that most of the people I think listening to this podcast are not selling to Target and Walmart retail big boxes display. I really like the idea for I just want to repeat it that you don't have to take a leap of faith from Seller Central to Vendor Central. You pick a couple of skews and you test Vendor Central with that. And you talked about negotiating with Vendor Central, do you actually get to talk to a live person and have that one person as your contracted contact, your trackling? For those that are not watching this on YouTube he smiled and he looked up to the left going oh my God could I tell you some stories I think, don't but is it a human that you get to talk to or is it email? Fahim: It depends, like with everything else it depends. There is a human that lives behind the desk that ultimately manages that and the team that manages that. It depends on if you're able to get a hold of that person. So sometimes the Vendor Manager is a lot more proactive especially for brands that have a larger business whether on Seller Central or externally and the Vendor Manager or somebody on that team reaches out and you have that direct line of contact. Sometimes people find the Vendor Manager Buyer on LinkedIn then and they start a relationship [inaudible 0:25:18.6]. That way sometimes a leverage, consultants and agents and people like myself, I get a hold of the buyer and broker a meeting and start some of those conversations, and many times the invite comes from a separate team. We get on boarded to Vendor Central and your business is not large enough in the eyes of the buyers [inaudible 0:25:38.1] you get a whole lot of time and attention. And you're often told to use Vendor Central's tools and file tickets to get answers so it does depend on the brand some of the brands that we work with…some of the larger brands or brands that more potential has better chances of getting some of that one on one relationships with the buyers. And some brands especially when they're earlier on their business isn't fully at scale form an Amazon perspective. They're often told to use Vendor Central, file tickets and try to leverage from the automated processes that exist. So it's possible but- Joe: Let's talk about that then. Two points, number one I want to hear your top negotiating tactic with vendor Central that you want to share with people today. Number two, maybe start with number two, size wise when…how big does a brand have to be in terms of let's just say that I'm going to peel off a couple of skews again what kind of revenue does that have to be producing in Seller Central to make a difference to the point when I can actually negotiate your top negotiating tactic? So if somebody is doing 50,000 $ a month is that enough, if they're doing 25 is that enough, do they need to be doing a hundred, what's the number? Fahim: It differs so widely by category as you can imagine. I'd say generally a lot of times I put the benchmark growth sales you want to be doing over a million dollars a year that will probably get the attention of the Vendor Manager. Again, it differs; if you're in a category, a huge consumer electronics category that number may need to be five million annual gross sales, if you're in a growing category, if you're in help and personal care, if you're in grocery, if you're in passion that number may end up being even lower than one million dollars. But I would say if you're doing less than a couple hundred thousand dollars annually on Amazon it's probably a lot of low hanging fruit to scale your business from Seller Central initially. If you're already doing north of a million plus dollars annually on Amazon then it depends on your category, it depends on your ranking and how big you are as a portion of that catalog but certainly the bigger your business the higher the likelier that you're gonna get the ear and the attention of that Vendor Manager. If you're doing some 10 million dollars annually in almost any category the Vendor Manager should not always does but should want to convert your business. Figure out how they can scale your business and they have tools again that you wouldn't have in the [inaudible 0:28:09.7]. So they really could if they wanted to help you grow that 10 million dollar business to be 15 or 20 million fairly quickly. Which is doing that on Seller Central is certainly possible but it's almost like you have one hand behind your back because you don't have access to the same set of tools. Joe: All right tell me about the negotiating tactics you and I have talked about. You're gonna create a little cheat sheet it's in the notes for people to download in terms of top negotiating tactics with Vendor Central. Can you give me one or two that we can share with folks? And I know it's going to be…it's going to depend upon the category and all that but throw something out. Fahim: Yeah, take them to dinner create a- Joe: Take them to dinner? Fahim: Yup take them to dinner or when you go to Amazon [inaudible 0:28:50.3] you want to create a relationship with that person and treat it like you are sitting from their side what do you want to hear. So it's less complaining and demanding it's more this is what I've been able to do so far I know you have the tools to help me really grow this business, I want my brand to be a big part of your business- Joe: You're not gonna say what I tell every buyer which is just be likeable. The more likable you are the more people are going to work with you is that? I mean this is part of the secret [inaudible 0:29:17.6] likeable? Fahim: I think that's certainly some part of it. I mean I think in the context of the conversation put yourself in their shoes again and why should they…this person literally has thousands of brands that technically fall under them. Why should they spend some time trying to invest in you? And being likeable certainly a part of it explaining why your brand has a big opportunity. Whether that's your growth rate on Amazon, whether that's things that you've done off of Amazon, whether that's new products that are coming on, whether that's quest and things that you've been able to capture externally, make them care. The more they care about it and certainly it helps if you likeable, although that's not always the case, the more that person is gonna want to invest in it. This person literally has to make a…there's not enough hours in the day for the Vendor Manager to keep everybody happy. And I know now being on both sides of the table how difficult that job can be and it can be very frustrating from a brand's perspective. But every day as a Vendor Manager you have to pick who are the 95% of people I'm going to piss off by not answering them by giving them the time of the day. Just because they have so many things going on and by creating a relationship, by understanding what they need, by taking care of the easy things yourself and not bothering them with things that you can complete by yourself by filing tickets on Vendor Central you're certainly gonna increase the chance that that person is going to invest in you. If they feel like their time on the phone with you, or in meetings, or doing annual planning meeting from Seattle, or meeting at trade show is valuable and they're actually helping you grow the business they're going to want to invest more. If most of the time you're talking to them it's about I filed this ticket and it's not working, or can you help me with this bank account issue, or I can't figure out why this [inaudible 0:31:06.8] of a thing is not working that person's again going to be stretched up and the answer is probably going to be file a ticket, reach out to somebody on Vendor Central anyway. So I think the more you can keep the picture on the long term and understand there's going to be some bumps along the road the better the chances that that buyer is going to want to invest in this relationship. So nothing, no silver bullet except for be likable, think about long term, think about it from that person's perspective. Joe: Got it, geographically where are you located? Fahim: In San Francisco and I spend my time in Texas as well. But between San Francisco and Texas. Joe: And the vendors, the Vendor Central Managers are they all up in Seattle, are they located around the country, where are they? Fahim: For the most part, most of the Vendor Managers are in Seattle yup. Joe: Okay and if someone wants to learn the basics of Vendor Central to make sure that they're understanding it as much as they can, is vendor Central on Amazon.com? The best resource and knowledge base to learn the basics out there or is there another resource that you'd suggest? Fahim: Vendor, so there's certainly less and this is a little bit frustrating I think for brands, there's less information about Vendor Central than there is for Seller Central externally, there is lot of tutorials, there's a lot of training, there's a lot of information, there's Seller Central's forums etcetera that exists for Seller Central and not a lot for Vendor Central. There is a lot of information on Vendor Central if you get an invite. The help section has tons and tons of guides probably not [inaudible 0:32:33.5] to go through all the different guides. So it's a little bit [inaudible 0:32:36.0] by fire. I would certainly spend a little bit more time on the operations and figuring out how inventory management works and if you want EDI support and what that looks like and managing that part of the process early on and getting a feel for it. There are some pretty good documents on Vendor Central again but they're pretty long and exhausting. So I think you have to scour Vendor Central support, talk to other brands that are on Vendor Central potentially, pop in to the Vendor Manager and kind of just learn by doing. The good news is that you- Joe: Sounds like there's a [inaudible 0:33:11.0] in the making here. Somebody should be creating [inaudible 0:33:13.7] and teaching Vendor Central. Fahim: Yup. Joe: And you and I get a royalty for that right? Now it's just an idea. Fahim: I like the idea. Joe: It's just an idea. Now, okay this is just a theory but I want to hear what you would say and this is really not just for sellers but it's for buyers of Amazon businesses. We're running short on time so I'm gonna just say I'm launching a listing this is all theory quote unquote for air quotes for those not watching, it's going out next week, the brand has been around for about three years growing quite rapidly, there's 12 skews and 60 variations doing about 1.3 million dollars in revenue in the trailing 12 months and there is a design patent on the product as well; Seller Central only. I'm going to come to you or I'm going to try to figure out Vendor Central myself. It's in a category of well I can't really say what it's in but it's not in a massive category with tons and tons competition. It's just something that you'd look at me if we were having a beer right now you'd say, Joe, you're nuts not to look at Vendor Central. Fahim: Potentially I think you could I mean within your interest to evaluate it. So maybe you're nuts if you're not thinking about it and evaluate it. Not necessarily that it's the right decision but you need to start doing your homework to figure out if it is. And the interesting thing is it may not be right now, it may be next year or maybe six months from now. But I think if you'd simply wrote it off and say it's too complicated I don't want to do it then I'll tell you're nuts. If you said I looked at it here's the pros here's the cons, ultimately Seller Central makes a lot more sense then I think you're doing exactly what you should do. Joe: What's the first step in evaluating it? Fahim: Getting the invite. So Vendor Express used to exist and fortunately that platform is retiring in this month. It was the idea that you can sign up…anybody can sign up to be a vendor on Amazon through this Vendor Express platform and you get a lot of the same tools, not everything, but a lot of the same tools with Vendor Central. Vendor Central is an invite only platform so you need to get invite from somebody at Amazon. Whether that's your category manager or there's a selection team or somebody who lives within that retail team. So it's tough to get a lot of information until you actually get that invite because when it comes down to look to your total margin, and what is this going to look like, what's your payment terms, you don't get that information until you get the invite. So I'll tell you the first step is starting to figure out who your Vendor Manager is and starting to have some conversation. Before that I think you could probably do some level of research and see other brands in your category; how many of them are vendors, how many of them are sellers. If you are continuously being ranked in the top 20 but never in the top 10 for your category look at…you should be looking at who those top 20 are on a regular basis, what are the brands, what are the skews, what are they doing that you're not doing. And if you find that 80% of them seem to be vendors and they have access to much better A+ content than you have and videos and they're all over holiday gift guides and you see them all over Today's Deal page, and they're getting Deals of the Day, and they're on Amazon Prime or Fresh and what not then I'd certainly be keeping that at mind. If you look at the list and say nobody's doing any of that everybody has the same tools as me, maybe you come out and say I'm not getting hurt or maybe you'd say there is an opportunity just for the go. So I get…prior to getting the invite and having a conversation certainly wanting to understand what you're dynamics are. I've seen categories like luxury beauty for example, where the vast majority of brands [inaudible 0:36:40.0] are vendors. And again it's because of a variety of different tools that they have access to that are not on the Sellers Central side. So in that category if you're a brand that wanted to do north of a million or two million dollars a year I would probably very heavily consider Vendor Central and start looking into the process of figuring out who the buyer is and what can I offer and how do I get a hold of them and what would this look like for example. So I think unfortunately there's not a whole lot of prep and information out there on exactly what your margins and your…would be ahead of time and some of those other details and how much inventory they're going to order or anything like that until you actually get the invite so just the first process is research, second process is find out who the Vendor Manager is, where you could get an invite off. Joe: Yeah if you can find out who your Vendor Manager is through LinkedIn or however you might be able to strike up communications and get that invite if need be. This may be a simple question but how do I look at Amazon and find a competitor and tell if they're Seller Central or Vendor Central, is there an obvious way? Fahim: So if you're going through a listing and you look under the price there's three different options that you'll see one of them for ships from and sold by Amazon.com, one of them will say sold by ABC and fulfilled by Amazon.com, and the third one will say ships from and sold by ABC.com. Joe: Gotcha. Fahim: The third one which says ships from and sold is a seller who is also doing their own fulfillment, most cases are not Prime eligible unless they're [inaudible 0:38:09.8] prime. The second option when it says sold by ABC.com and fulfilled by Amazon means they're a seller that's [inaudible 0:38:17.7]. And the first one that says ships from and sold by Amazon.com means that Amazon is buying that. In most cases that means that brand has a Vendor Central account but again there could be a case where the brand actually doesn't sell to Amazon but a distributor does. But either way that is what they would call retail or Vendor Inventory is a ships from and sold by Amazon.com. And a final tidbit is there's been a lot of research done that shows that it differs by category but customers have more [inaudible 0:38:49.4] when it that ships from and sold by Amazon.com and conversion could be significantly higher even than an FBA listing. Certainly, both a retail and FBA listing would have higher conversion than something that's not Prime eligible than something that's not SFP but in some categories I've heard the conversion could be 30-50% higher, all else equal for something that's been shipped from and sold by Amazon.com. Not all customers understand the difference but people are becoming a little more savvy and if you're on the fence and you say I've never heard of this brand but if Amazon is buying it it's a little bit easier. But [inaudible 0:39:23.7] work a little bit easier because the brand doesn't even need to get involved. I can just reach out to Amazon Customer Service, sometimes that's the difference [inaudible 0:39:30.9] when somebody is making a difference. Joe: I hadn't even thought of that conversion rate on things 30, 40% percent maybe that's just even if you divide by four and you get a 10% bump. That's a pretty big bump for a lot of people that are listening today. Well, listen Fahim you've been great, we're running out of time I know you're gonna put together a cheat sheet for negotiating with the Vendor Central, maybe you can throw in some links there for any place that people can learn about Vendor Central. You'll share some details about eShopportunity as well and how do people find you if they are listening to this now and are driving down the street and they don't want to go to the notes. How do they find you right now? Fahim: Probably the easiest way is going on eShopportunity.com and there's a contact us form. I also do go to a bunch of conferences so oftentimes I meet and talk to brands there. I'll be at IRCE, I'm the Chairman of the Amazon conference for this year so I'll be around all day so if anybody would love to have a conversation in person that's certainly possible as well. Joe: Fantastic. Man, you've been great I appreciate it. You've cleared up a lot of things I think a lot of people are gonna ask a lot more questions and hopefully look at Vendor Central more realistically both sellers of businesses and those that are investing in them to help take it to the next level. Appreciate your time, thank you so much. Fahim: Absolutely. Thanks, Joe, wonderful time. Thank you. Joe: Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Quiet Light Podcast for more resources from this episode head over to quietlightbrokerage.com. If you're enjoying the show please leave a rating and review in iTunes, this helps share the messages from the show with more business owners like you.    

EP083 - Andrea Leigh, selling on and negotiating with Amazon   Andrea Leigh is the owner at Andrea K. Leigh Consulting, which helps clients sell on and negotiate with Amazon.  Andrea enjoyed a 10 year career at Amazon where she served in a number of Buying and Category Leadership roles.  Andrea is a recognized expert on Amazon, who has written a number of helpful articles about Amazon on linkedin: Amazon's New End Game is Likely Third Party Sellers. What Retail Brands Should Do About it Why Your Brand Should Sell Hybrid (1P + 2P + 3P) on Amazon - Demystifying the Hybrid Selling Model Hype Why Your Brand Should Care About Amazon’s Item-Level Economics (i.e, CRaP) We spoke with Andrea about her background and experiences at Amazon, the digital grocery market and Amazon's efforts in the segment, and the best practices and common pitfalls in working with Amazon. Andrea will be one of the speakers at "Amazon & Me" an all day workshop on Tuesday June 6th at IRCE, hosted by Scot Wingo. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 83 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday May 11, 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature - Amazon Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 82 being recorded on Wednesday May 10th 2017 I am your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I know Scot Wingo. Scot & Andrea: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome Jason Scott show lister's let me first apologize it is peak, pollen season here in sunny Raleigh North Carolina and my allergies is amitab attacked me and I have a sore throat so I apologize for the the lowness of my voice however I will be doing some Darth Vader quotes later so it will come in handy, Jason before we dive in it's been about a week and a half before we chatted any road trips you want a report on. Jason: [1:08] I do have a couple of days or so very sorry to hear you're feeling under the weather it's sort of Harkens me back to our famous shop talk shows where I didn't have much of a voice. [1:19] And our live listeners are totally on it that I've got a bunch of my text messages since I just did the intro in this is actually episode 83 so I want to apologize. For the falls. Boss intro a minute ago but thank you to all those folks that are listening in the show Live this week I was I got to do a trade show in town in Chicago in my hometown which is a rare treat for me. Mwb research does a show every year for the B2B in this week I'll be to be online so I. I just got to go do a presentation there yesterday and talk to some folks about B2B e-commerce which is her that interesting contrast to the the retail stuff that we talked about. Scot & Andrea: [2:02] Yeah did you get a lot of questions about Amazon business that's whatever you ask me. Jason: [2:06] Not as many as I would hope I would take it as a better sign of people were a little more concerned in that space about Amazon business, perhaps a parallel the sum of things we'll talk about today. There's some really Advanced B2B e-commerce companies but the general level is pretty digitally immature and so, you know you tend to be talking to people in that industry that you were talking to retailers about maybe four or five years ago, and I have a theory that that a lot of the cpg space are also somewhat digitally immature and a rapidly trying to catch up and so we we we make it to hit upon that in today's episode. Scot & Andrea: [2:45] Coolest part of your talk to call the audience to Julie immature. Jason: [2:48] The love I do talk about the digital maturity curve and I let them judge for themselves where where they're on but my talk. Is ironic cuz I I was mainly talking. To stakeholders they were really interested in watching B2B initiatives inside e-commerce initiatives inside their company about how to get c-suite buyin and since I've been kicked out of some easy sweets I thought maybe that was. And ironic choice for me. Scot & Andrea: [3:16] Old Town ironic if your c-suite the immature. Jason: [3:19] Exactly I've been in a lot of sweets just for a brief period of time. Scot & Andrea: [3:22] You're mature getting kicked out of six weeks. Jason: [3:25] Exactly how I'm high on the kick after blow on the maturity curve. [3:31] Just got one of my favorite thing, the show is you know from time to time we get some nice listeners that right in and say nice things about the show and had told her to reorder top and something and I always enjoy that, but I thought you liked this week I may have gotten my favorite piece of fan mail. Scot & Andrea: [3:49] Go to zip front and what they say. Jason: [3:51] Yeah so it is from a listener and Marie who runs the e-commerce site called dog quality.com and she's a regular listener and. Had a recent occasion to go to our website where the show notes are and. There there's an about me tab there with a picture of me and my dog MacGyver and so Emery who obviously is in the dog industry so I'm a guy her and wrote MacGyver a piece of fan mail. Scot & Andrea: [4:17] What are you going to read it first. Jason: [4:19] Well I won't read the whole letter as she's right kind of currently Doug quality focuses on. Elder dog quality of life in and products that the older dog specifically need and she was nice enough to say that in the Guyver looked like a spring chicken and probably didn't need any of her products, but she is she certainly offered hook MacGyver up should should the need ever arise and I was laughing because she doesn't know this but the MacGyver is a frequent guest on the show MacGyver is Jenner sitting on my lap for the show and so he was, very pleased to find out that he finally got some of the recognition that he he well deserved. Scot & Andrea: [4:56] GoFundMe you wear at shoptalk it sounded like he was he was doing your part. Jason: [5:00] Actually he is a man of few words but he's much more insightful than I am and I don't know this but I think you have a couple dogs that have at least made a cameo appearance on the show as well don't you. Scot & Andrea: [5:13] Yes sometimes in my podcast recording studio here which is also my home office ad my 10 year old Border Collie kit sits on the floor and that we have A1 year old, Cavalier named Lulu and she usually sits on my lap but tonight they are elsewhere hanging out with the kids. Jason: [5:31] Nice. Scot & Andrea: [5:33] We'll just before the podcast goes to the dogs we have an exciting guest for listeners tonight. As you listeners are well aware I'm a little bit obsessed with all things Amazon and every time I talk to tonight's guest I learned a ton about that what makes Amazon tick, and really spent a decade and Amazon from 05 to 15 and now runs a consulting firm called Andrea Kaley consulting or she helps Brands and sellers with their Amazon strategies as well as other e-commerce growth in it, I'm hosting a workshop that internet retailer Conference & exhibition which is commonly abbreviated IRC. And Angie is one of our speakers talking about Advanced strategies for Brands and wanted to go she ate with Amazon and you're welcome to the show thanks for having me. Cool and so we got Central covered with Jason in Chicago on East in assume you're in Seattle in 7 days. How's the weather is it is it typical Seattle are you guys getting your sunny days. Know where we got a little bit of fun but you know it's still we still have to get to the Fourth of July before summer really starts here cool so um. We really want to jump into it so one background statement before we jump in. Sometimes be a few back for listeners will jump right into Sonny's topics and I neglect to cover some of the basic so tonight when you use phrases like one p3p hybrid, we see one PSP specifically in the Amazon context that usually that someone has a wholesale relationship or a first-party relationship with Amazon third-party usually refers to more of a Marketplace kind of relationship. [7:07] Are the hybrid is a lot water brands now that exploring kind of a dual approach so a wholesale Ana Marketplace approach just wanted to let her listeners kind of have that that little glossary there at the top of the show before we do it. And I'll turn it over to Jason who is dying to kick off. Jason: [7:24] Thanks, let me highlight for a listeners that are not driving weather listening to podcast that the whole one p3p hybrid thing also makes for an excellent drinking game. [7:39] So it's winter before we we get into that and III. [7:43] One p3p question for you where I think there may be some Andrea Scott controversy early I hope there is but before we go there. Maybe we can start with a little bit of background about you and sort of you can walk us through how you got into this industry and what some of your experiences. Scot & Andrea: [8:02] The absolutely so I said you know probably the majority of my career at Amazon that was there for 10 years from 2005 to 2015 and I was on I worked in the retail group for the entire time, I'm in different roles as actually started as one of the founding original buyers for the amazon.com grocery category and you kind of, migrated my way to the company and number of different roles, including divisional manager for the baby category and working on getting the Amazon, baby registry can I prevent in and then good good order with customers as well as a leading category teams for Amazon Fresh, and, Rawhide most recently before I left and for the longest actually for a little over three years was a category leader for a hard-line soft lines. And consumables for Amazon Canada where and we watch consumables and softlines on while I was there I also ran the prime program and Canada and Italy Avon with it with the transportation team, in addition I've worked on the, crab process for Canada help develop that and get that thing running up there if that some of the term that everyone is familiar with that's Amazon's term for can't realize any profit. [9:32] Which is through their way of identifying items that are unprofitable for them. And I left Amazon two years ago to start my own Consulting practice where I work now with Brands a lot of them that I worked with while I was at Amazon, you know to help them achieve their goals on Amazon whatever those might be gross profit you know I saw him planning. Etc and in the category leadership relate Amazon if you're not familiar with that sort of structure at Allegan General Manager and you're responsible for all of, a buyer vendor management planning in the stock management marketing product management sometimes the technology teams as well so that's a little bit about that rule the last years I have been working. And Consulting can I have them working directly with Brands doing some speaking and doing some writing. And a man actually really partner with Melissa Burdick the kind of team up for Consulting practice and so that's, that's kind of what I've what I've been up to. Jason: [10:41] Questions about that you went from being the evil buyer to helping Bray. [10:51] Kind of like going from the federal government to becoming a lobbyist is there a man. Scot & Andrea: [10:54] You know it feels like there should be, the Empire is not but I mean I really feel like for the most part the work that I do is really Amazon's best interest I mean when it's actually one of the reasons I wanted to start my order form I mean in the early days of the Amazon Vendor Manager spent a lot of time with her and I spend time with my brand I'll be in them figure out how to grow how to use the platform head understand it to be successful and kind of coaching them and teaching, and you as Amazon, skilled and crew become more automated and that's my role grew and I took on my two teams I just found that I was sending you know very little time talking with brands, an Amazon in Genoa spending very little time kind of in that teaching capacity, and so you know that was kind of one of the reasons that I wanted to do this, I think would just like a small amount of Education about the Amazon platform, no Brands can see some really amazing success by applying some really basic principles and it's not hard you know it's it's I think it can be pretty straightforward once you understand how Amazon is different from other retailers. Quarter certain types of Brands you properly work with her show cpg seems to be a real house kind of area for you or your little bit all of them. You know I've been all over the map where's and small and end in any number of different categories but I will say that this species tend to have kind of the biggest challenges on Amazon pretty early because they were you know they're they're off and doing a pretty sizable businesses. [12:34] In addition to I'm just having a lot of products that are really difficult for Amazon to ship profitably so I think they kind of think they they have the most challenges, I'm as it relates to Krista voorhis with the with the, a platformer a business model where products are shipped directly to customers often in the single units but I've but I work with all kinds of brands. Across all categories. Jason: [12:59] Nice and you mentioned um baby for a while and if I have the time line right the Quincy acquisition happened right in the middle of your tenure. Scot & Andrea: [13:08] Right in the millimeter exactly and it's funny because I remember when they first got on our radar and we were and we were really thinking about like they're getting some really great friends on the site and how are they doing that and I remember thinking like we should go for this we should do we should go get them, we should call them but I'm and it's it's really interesting but I mean you know you know how all acquisitions go it's pretty it's pretty hush-hush internal lake cinemas that stuff happening. Jason: [13:37] Yeah but so did you literally go from hating them and they were an amethyst to like becoming a partner. Scot & Andrea: [13:45] You know I had moved on to another category by the time we actually started integrated integrating with them but you know I was there I was definitely there for the acquisition piece and you know they were doing. Three steps hi I'm just doing a really nice job pretty Leanne diapers.com, Beano getting new customers and as we all know that time when the consumer becomes a parent is just such a pivotal point in terms of brand loyalty and brand switching is really high at that point and they were really they were seeing a lot of success with some of their marketing tactics, in an option that consumer as well as you know getting a lot of kind of more perceived higher-end baby Brands to to partner with them. Jason: [14:31] Nice and I don't know we've talked about this on the show and I will surely understand if you don't want to share an opinion but you know there's been a little controversy is his Wizards probably do know. Scot & Andrea: [14:42] Fish. Jason: [14:43] They spend down Quincy Quincy this year and there's at least one of our friends in the media Jason Delray that that. So it has this hypothesis that it literally was out of spite for markquart who's who's competing with them Amazon it at Walmart and I'll just pay for the. I personally don't believe I don't know what the real logic was behind spinning a down I can imagine there's a story that we don't know but I have a hard time. [15:14] You know potentially several hundred people are getting laid off space. Out of some competitive spy on the part of of Jeff. Scot & Andrea: [15:23] Yeah I read Jason's article about that. Yeah I read that article that I mean I think that's possible and obviously I don't know I don't work there anymore but I, email Amazon just serve god with a needed out of that relationship, and there wasn't a lot of sense in keeping up separate websites me over the years Amazon had tried to spin out other web sites and it's just really challenging it's really challenging to drive traffic to a new site I mean as hell with the endless launch and then take down they got so mad it is so much traffic through going to their native site so kind of continuing to some, pour it into additional websites just seems really. Really tough and I'm not really sure why that would be a great strategy for them and you know if you think about like they sort of got what they needed that of that Arrangement they were able to you know take out app, who is Fab a fast-growing and competitor that was getting a lot of traction you know this is going back like 10 years ago. And then them from sort of like, becoming you know a real material competitor and then in addition to that you know they were able you know to integrate some of that inventory or those Brands under their own site no maybe some of the brands or harder for them to. Dino to acquire so I still feel like they got what they needed and it's really expensive. Having a Second Sight means possible there was some slight there it is truly when you look at that whole it's Story I mean it's like a soap opera. [16:58] Terms of the level of drama. I mean it's just fascinating but I think Amazon is a company with more Integrity than. You know that one that might you know I have all that and you know I just have a lot of people suffer. Jason: [17:18] No I think the URL consolidation makes a lot of sense and there are just good business reasons for. Amazon ultimately to go there at the one I I guess ironic thing is they thought they were making an acquisition to take out a competitor and all that money that used in the acquisition ultimately was used to create a new competitor so I guess. Scot & Andrea: [17:37] Flatbush feel like soap opera or irony I'm not really sure that's why I need that's the real twist in it. Jason: [17:46] The irony of me is that I use the word irony wrong all the time. [17:52] So changing topics you mention the crap program in Canada and we we talked about a crap a little bit on one of the other shows. But maybe you're in a good position to confirm or deny. The rumor is that that was started as an internal term that was not intended to be. Scot & Andrea: [18:13] Yeah. Exactly what I read in one of my articles he was not intended to be public-facing it all it was a term that was developed by the finance team like I'm very clearly recall this and I don't know I can't imagine they share this room just funny, and you know I remember seeing in the fruit one of the first meetings where the finance team brought us this program and the program itself makes sense you look at stuff is unprofitable and figure out how to get it more profitable, I put the acronym Chris is really terrible and I member we all kind of looked at each other like this or go it's like really and you know I don't think it was ever meant to be other two vendors but now it's out there and now it's like an industry term. Jason: [19:01] It's it's really awkward cuz they a category that's particularly vulnerable to crap is of course toilet paper in so when you're, to a cpg manufacturer that's talking about their total, trapped out it's really on the potty humor goes goes downhill really fast. Scot & Andrea: [19:19] Yeah and I mean I don't think that I don't think the procedure of that was lost on them right I mean diapers and toilet paper or two of the kind of like really on really difficult items to ship, take us to Harris profitably and so I'm pretty sure that was so, Davidson strategy around the name but the funny part is like by the time I left we were just tossing it around in meetings and like it was the term has lost all of its like conversations, and I think it's funny now and I talked with Brands and I and I talked about crab and, really quiet like Amazon came up with it hasn't explained it so disgusting. Jason: [20:02] So the shocking part to me is not that any of that happened the shocking part to me is when you move to Canada that you didn't find a nicer friendlier term for Canada because it's Canada just say is nicer. Scot & Andrea: [20:10] You know that's a really good point like at that point it didn't even occur to me that when we started the program in Canada we could have called it something else but you know it's too late now. Jason: [20:25] So one one last topic before I let Scot get a word in edgewise, at the beginning the show you talked about or Scott introduced the concept of one p and 3p and we talked a lot about 1p and 3p. And when a 3p seller is using FBA as their distribution strategy. Scot and the show generally talked about them being a 3p seller that uses NFPA and I've noticed in some of your writing that you call. FBA sellers to pee so I'm just curious if you and Scott and have our are aligned on that vernacular or of or. Scot & Andrea: [21:05] I mean I think I think I think it's 3 PS1 of encompassing both Merchant sold as well as, social Diana son so you know where Amazon a store in the inventory shipping on your behalf they are still there that's to pay the sizzle by Amazon program, mn3 can include that but I usually it's referring to Merchants that ship out of their own warehouses. Jason: [21:29] Got it so what do you call a vendor for field FBA. Scot & Andrea: [21:34] I would call that she pee. Jason: [21:36] Gotta and Scott are you are you okay with that. Scot & Andrea: [21:40] I try to keep it simpler so I think that would maybe confuse people, chicken official Amazon me cancers that just no actually never heard these turns until I left. And they're sort of what a lot of my clients used to describe the different business models and with some of the folks in this kind of like ancillary Amazon industry send you so that's it those are the ones I've adopted but you know there's a really simple version is one piece retail, is Amazon buying product from Brands and reselling it and then 3p is where, the brand or the other retailers uses Amazon's platformer services. Who is one thing I wanted to jump into before we get to nerdy on e-commerce side is is on your bio you are part of the Amazon or raise our program of study that a lot as a internet I'm kind of obsessed with Amazon's culture in and how they, such a large company she needs Innovative and doesn't seem to have a lot of bureaucracy and it seems like the bar razor program is kind of, last couple years decided as a really kind of key contributor that four letters that aren't following that is close to as I am maybe give us a quick background a bar razor and, tell us about your experience being in that program. Yeah absolutely I'm in if you really interested in Amazon's culture and how they say Innovative actually you love my next article I got one coming out another week that's just the really just phones and on that specific topic. [23:13] I would love that actually if I could really use some other program, and I think this is some Polish so I don't think there's anything like confidential here but it's essentially her Amazon where there's a set of interviewers that are meant to, teach other interviewers how to interview so this is like so the more experienced said of interviewers go through specific training to teach others had a interview and then you know you need to have. I need to have someone in this from this program at least you did when I was there on every interview Loop scissors or busy, and you know that the idea is not that that's like the tough interview or whatever I think that's been written before actually not true it's it's the person that facilitates the conversation and really drive out all of the insights from the interview from all of the people who interviewed the candidate, and really make sure that you're having a cohesive discussion and that you're applying kind of them. Does cats a consistent set of principles to hiring decisions across the company and so it's not your consistency, and for maintaining the culture not true, being like a really particularly tough interviewer although probably some of them are really tough interviewers so I was in that program most of my time there I mean cuz I was, I know I started there you know kind of it before they started some of their real significant growth. [24:50] And I got into it early and I think by the time I left I have done almost a thousand interviews and you know, mayilada hires connect during that time. Cool so you're in the interview and then you also delete a post interview kind of debrief is that I would have her. Exactly exactly any ideas just really for consistency and for us I think the same is true in any organization where you've got some time so it's on interview Loops it University experience or. [25:23] I'm in after struggling a little more to apply some of the principles, you know the leadership principles are still learning the leadership principles and so is their kind of someone in the room that's got some experience with that and can help guide the conversation. Clannad articles I've read say it, cuz of this book number one usually by razor is in a different apartment and so you would be the Barbies are for like engineering or something and some other person would bar raise for fire, a person like that I mean it's like I couldn't I couldn't facilitate a conversation about someone who's going to, be on my team you know you want certain external perspective but I think that's just a general in your dream practice Amazon anyway regardless of whether it's a bar raise or not it's just a lot of perspectives on a Candida think the weirdest interview I've ever participated in was for it was, like a mad scientist like an economist, I remember prepping for That interview and just thinking like what am I going to ask him if I did try to get this person some Economist questions I would be hard-pressed to judge the quality of the answer and I remember though it's sitting in the defense I didn't know anything about the contents of this person's work but it was room market like the process of, determining if they work a candidate was like, damn I mean was really it really didn't change so do you have a go to question like why are manhole covers round how do you do the mountains. [27:01] You know I think one of my favorite ones someone who asked I heard someone else asked in an interview as part of our thing is like you to train people you Shadow and you, we go along and someone it's something that like your job is to lunch the houseplants categor live houseplants category on Amazon like what we did see how would you approach this, is this at lunch or something and I remember just thinking like, that's a tough one it's just kind of shocking anyway. Jason: [27:30] I think that's where you go to selling seeds. Scot & Andrea: [27:33] Exactly exactly. Jason: [27:37] A in it it occurs to me that like in addition that Consulting with brands on how to do a Amazon you could also do interview Consulting for a candidates have you helped anyone interview since you up. Scot & Andrea: [27:49] I'm in a little bit here and there I can do some projects on it and I had a Consulting project recently where there was a component of it where they were looking for some some guidance in their organizational structure, and had it had a sort of resource this business and what skill sets and things like that are critical to a little bit but you know the core of it has been, if people don't want people just tend to want to talk to me about her half and one piece EP 3 p and headed to go see it with Amazon Amino seem to be a bit, the topics that are the biggest draw. Jason: [28:28] I asked questions I always like to ask XM is zonians I've never work for Amazon but. I have great admiration for the company in the caliber of former employees I've met all the reading I do it frankly comes off as a totally unappealing place to work. [28:50] Talk to ex amazonians that sort of Concur and I talked to ones that wildly disagree and so I guess I'm just curious. Scot & Andrea: [28:57] Most of the ones that don't agree probably still work there no I thought it was an amazing, inspiring place to work I mean I have. I just had a really incredible experience there I feel really fortunate to have worked with the high-quality caliber of people that I was but I interacted with you know I wasn't working with more and more on Clans and other organizations and just realizing how remarkable that was, I want a time I mean I feel like I had some pretty nice career trajectory there that you might not see it, another types of organizations I mean I thought it was an amazing place I think you know when you think about like that, I'm bossy Channel article of it was like, it was right when I was leaving that that article was published about how terrible it is to work at the corporate headquarters and the people cry at their desks and you know that article everything except probably some of that I feel like some of the past employee like the people who'd been fired sort of testimonials sounded off like they didn't sound consistent with the company that I knew, the rest of the day that was like pretty true I mean if I'm really hurt it's really hard hard to make history and you work you working with some of the smartest people, I think around but the article was just really um. And it will be amazing there any Amazon. [30:28] Top 5 Business Schools all those people we have a choice we have to work there and they have lots of options there for a reason and it's because it's super inspiring and you can be Innovative and build your own business, you should hire a nanny is taking a lot of responsibility, I'm here if you have an idea and it's a good one and you can put together a good business case for it it still even though it's a big company now it's still the type of place where you can, you can see that through and so I mean I think it's I think it's an incredible place or I didn't see it it's a it's a. It's like running a marathon you know you can't do it has to look at has to stop at some point I think it's hard to it would be hard to work there your whole life. There's no free snacks. Jason: [31:19] Bananas free banana. Scot & Andrea: [31:20] There's no reason I give you the Sheep pens you know just don't know books are like that you know the $0.50 ones there's no there's no curse reality leadership principles you can use PowerPoint Jason I make a living on power, Point sucks really dense white papers, I think I think I got some of the best writing training. Bear in just being a headache ran the most about and data into like the shortest way if you possible. Jason: [31:58] Yeah so that brings up one of my biggest garage with X amazonians I'm I'm always super excited when I hired one because I'm thinking like I'm going to get these really insightful well-written long-form deliverables. And then I keep getting these crappy power points from them. Scot & Andrea: [32:14] They're just so excited he's her. Jason: [32:15] Exact exact. Scot & Andrea: [32:16] That's just for so many years and now all I can I cancel team does a star play for almost everything I'm one of those people I totally am. Jason: [32:26] Yeah so that was a little bit disappointing for me I have to be honest. You don't want of the categories that I am super interested in at the moment it's been a lot of time and is grocery in and you use us and gray. Experience in the impression Amazon might my premise is in North America. [32:48] Wholesale e-commerce like the battles basically already already been one right like you don't frequent frequent statement in my practices you're not going to Amazon Amazon and so you're looking for Winchester or you know. Little place around the edges but like you nor anyone else is necessary going to just build. 400 million skier general merchandise catalog in and capture majority market share from Amazon but I do believe that grocery is a huge category potentially larger than general merchandise. Did just now is coming into play for for digital Commerce City. [33:30] We deliver that in so I do feel like it's a white space and I think we're seeing sort of Walmart Amazon and you know to a lesser extent the. The pure plays in Kroger and stuff all all battling it out is that it are you following that category at all still in. Scot & Andrea: [33:48] Oh absolutely absolutely both Serta professionally and also personally my husband has a firm idea quickly build, Play click and collect software so I follow it. Religiously and he mentioned the consumables categories are there in Norma semi dwarf, the other general merchandise categories but I think the beauty of them for e-commerce is that they uh they drive frequency in traffic, and you know I think once, once Amazon in one Southern retailers can I caught on to this they realized how important it is to make this work online because you know when you think about it like you only buy coffee maker like every couple of years I need a picture in TV is like those don't those types of products, don't drive frequency and visit people like every week, so you know these categories I mean this forever or the trip drivers and they called them truck drivers. They got people in the store we sell them for their stuff I mean the same model those two Outta mind, you got customers traffic through the consumable categories and then in a while they're there hopefully they buy other things. Jason: [35:04] Yeah until 8 and I was here in Seattle so you get to see a lot of the first iteration of concepts of I assume you've walked by the ghost or if you haven't snuck in with an old age anything in. [35:18] Don't get in trouble on the show don't get in trouble on the show. Scot & Andrea: [35:21] And we also because we can never even rolled out, wake me to tell Gram here for a while where I think that was only in like two or three markets we're in this I think this is the precursor to Prime now where, or they would deliver your stuff and like a bag on your porch with no over boxing or anything, I mean I'm sure it was really expensive to get all the stuff that was pretty cool and you can sign up for like a tote day was like a regular schedule day so we get all kinds of Pilots here which is kind of funny to see experimentation with Amazon so yeah I've been by the ghost or I haven't gone in, and I think it's really I think it's. One of the more remarkable technology that Amazon has Philip Justin just walk out technology. Jason: [36:12] #JY. Scot & Andrea: [36:14] Is she literally just walked out of the store was actually sounds kind of awful if I'm shopping with my kids but I'm sure Amazon for your at the above. Jason: [36:23] As we pointed out early on when they want that concept that they're claiming it's his big new revolutionary thing and myself and one of my peers we're using that technology in high school so. [36:34] Not sure it's quite as impressive if you got a chance to go by the the fresh pickup location yet. Scot & Andrea: [36:43] No I haven't but that's the second lunch of those in Seattle we had another pilot years ago to pick up points so CA, I'm seeing the model and I know where the spot is in fact I was thinking maybe next week I don't think it's up and running yet but I was going to go do a drive by and just check it out to pick up stations in Seattle I mean like it it looks like I'm driving through it looks like a drive-in burger joint with like all the ankle parking, pretty is pretty cool and then another just bring it all out and put it in your in your car but I mean this figuring out pickup, I mean it's super expensive to ship dog food to customers dog food to Prime customer and you're totally upside down economics, and you know in order to be competitive and figure out how to make money in the space you have to figure out how to get people to come to you and sell them a bunch of stuff at once. Jason: [37:41] Yeah for sure and it I do think that's going to be the dominant model for grocery like I think you know it and you use only strings this with. Fresh but like you know most of the Amazon Goods get delivered on a route and you can bundle a bunch of deliveries and I can be really efficient but when you deliver fresh in the person has to be home to receive it because they have to put it in the refrigerator, settling you're not doing routes accepting in a few really high Denso occasions you're doing individual deliveries and that, that's super expensive in for most of the country the economics just don't work and so it seems like saving all that shopping time and having that pick up. I it was my. That's going to be the the mainstream digital grocery experience and I have literally nothing. Thousands of consumer interviews where they just talk about it being life-changing when they start using that that feature from whomever they use it from. Scot & Andrea: [38:35] Witches, which is really funny because like this isn't a new feature like I used to when I was a kid we used to call the grocery store and we tell him what we wanted and we drive by and pick it up there's not a new model, scale is probably a new model I mean I just grew up in a small town but I think what's really interesting is the whole evolution of this thing like I remember going to trade shows and like 2006 going to like that candy and confectionery and. And talking with Brands and saying, sell on Amazon and they were like that's crazy like why would you sell food on Amazon and then there was like they all signed up. NN and now it's like a race It Was a Race for a long time you know who would get there first two and half capture all the market share who can work most strategically with Amazon and other in Walmart and can whomever else and then everyone knows everyone knows grocery had a great day, now it's like it's kale and now he's calories are in a small anymore for these retailers and now they're just like a. I'm probably suck and so how do you figure out how to make it work and that's I mean that's where I think a lot of experimentation comes into play through a lot of these players it was trying models to see what might work, you know in Seattle we have fresh we have Prime now we have pickup points we have a, Amazon go store anything for a different model for the Amazons experimenting with an S with Amazon and then you're seeing really the rise of cook and cut which I totally agree with you I think I can collect is the next, that's the next thing because I'm already fatiguing I mean I've been shopping for my groceries online since you lunch freshman 2007 here and I'm sitting at the pricing you know it's just it's just cheaper like you just it is because the economics are different and they don't have to ship it to me and another driver. [40:21] And I'm sure Amazon's figured out you know how to make all that stuff work, and the reality is it's just worse than even the prime now and even instacart and I were to costco.com and safeway.com you like all the different models and even has to offer higher prices on some of it in store specials online and so I mean as a consumer and fatiguing, of the pricing I'm Slicker she's just as much like and it's tempting to go back to the store and horrible so I see. Jason: [40:53] Scot would be horrified if you did that. Scot & Andrea: [40:55] You're so right for the next model, and I believe it's click and collect and I believe in you profitable and I believe whatever groceries get on board with this the fastest are the ones that are going to, you know they really going to kill all the share. Jason: [41:11] Yeah I think that Title Wave is is coming it's going to be fun to watch you're certainly right it's not a new model there used to be this thing in the world called the milkman. Scot & Andrea: [41:20] Totally we actually the mailbox I mean we know when delivered anything to it but it still existed in her house. Jason: [41:27] Yeah absolutely so at the end of the day do you think there's a chance that someone other than Amazon wins that space so I could you foresee a Walmart or a Kroger someone else. Scot & Andrea: [41:40] Will depend on how fast we can both I mean that's really what it comes down to it's not a complicated model you ordered online you know you pick it out your stores and you know you let customers come pick it up we've got it here at Fred Meyer local in Seattle, I'm so it's not I don't think it's a challenging model that I think a lot of these larger groceries or kind of, I don't want to say freaking out but their head of flummoxed by the concept of like setting up a retailer website what does that mean how do you up so customers how you do it right how do you let Brandon getting on it because you're basically recreating like an Amazon, .com grocery store online and let you know that feels really overwhelming, and so I don't think they're moving real fast and I think it's just going to be like humuhumu fast but I do think it will be hard to compete with Amazon's Automation and personalization as it relates to marketing. They're just they're just so good at it and so far you don't haven't seen any other retailers that have even touched it and that's either really where you get like that, if you're able to drive customers to larger basket sizes online and help them discover products and be productive about like when they're about to run out of things and that kind of thing. It's funny I said the big fan of this show Silicon Valley and that this is not a spoiler but in last week's episode they, the two the characters went to the grocery store and they were the only non tasker's in the grocery store there's like 80 people in the grocery store. Jason: [43:11] That is a great point like I the one you're at your hair percent right about the price fatigue the one loophole is it can be really cheap to deliver groceries to your home when you get a venture capitalist to pay the delivery fee. Scot & Andrea: [43:22] For Google. Jason: [43:25] I feel like at the moment there's this the short window of opportunity I encourage everyone to use all that good Andreessen Horowitz money to deliver their groceries. Scot & Andrea: [43:37] I'm just change topics little bit so then your Consulting gig you can spend a lot of time with Brands you talked about the things they want to talk about which is crap and pricing going to go see a Ting one piece of p3p. What are some of the pitfalls you see them falling into an ear do they they come to you and they say oh my gosh I've got, does problem with her your what are some of the pitfalls that you wish things would have oil for they come to. What are the three things like people they were staying for a bit but a consistent being that I'm seeing is that a lot of them in the CPC space are only thinking like one or two years ahead and it's kind of a reactive model, a reaction way of thinking to Amazon's kind of, anyways have a crap program but I think they're getting a little stricter about it and kind of the last one to two years and so a lot of his friends are going items crapped out, they're trying to keep up with like how to, how to leverage Amazon's new marketing platforms and they're just really focused on the here and now and not I don't think thinking too much about where's the where's this thing go into yours me Amazon's never going to make money shipping dog food and cat litter across the United States alike what is the future of this look like and I don't think a lot of them are spending. Enough time thinking about that because this is when you want to plant your seeds for that so you know if it's the next big model is me nice I might. My opinion is on Amazon they're really going to figure out the pantry program I mean the way to economically ship products to customers. You know that that is secreted that is. [45:07] Freshly unprofitable in a direct-to-customer at least should be model is to put in a box of the whole bunch of other stuff so it perfectly fits and charge the customer like a nominal fee that they're not going to really. And I worry too much about and then ship them a whole bunch of stuff at once and that's basically what the pantry program is and that program seems to be doing pretty well for them. Iskra. Really fast cording to some of the brands that I work with that are participating in it so I mean I think you thinking about like where the future is and Pantry still kinda challenging it's hard to hear item set up an assault like an automated thing yet, and so in thinking about like where where is the next gen of this thing going, because I mean in the writing on the wall is it like Amazon is not going to keep seeing all these products to lose money in this in the consumable space or they're just going to get really refined assortment. And so programs like Pantry Paramus Lake you know Prime now or the pickup points or whatever those are the Amazon ones but then like what we're talking about click and collect like. I think that you know expanding their, nearest Thinking Outside those kind of the current challenges you're having with your Amazon retail businesses is critical and the brands that are doing that are the ones they're going to be set up for Success because they planted seeds and cut it started that smell, this is nursing one side so let's step outside consumables and take out a category that's like maybe more mature like up. [46:39] Electronics repair or something the one that I keep hearing is when the Randall say when I think 5 or 10 years down the line. Amazon tonight exclusive retailer and that scares me because it's a race to zero so that's why a lot of brands are on the doubt that's that's one of the reasons you did they have map pricing in controlling the 3p Marketplace, do you think that's that you know you're obviously have drunk a little bit of Amazon Kool-Aid over the last 10 years but no. Is that what we're going to be facing his is this kind of you know it brings have a logical argument to not be on Amazon because they're kind of feeding their own destruction. But I don't think I mean it would be difficult to not be on the phone because of the opportunity that presents to Branzino just from League of Revenue prospective, and sometimes from profit perspective too but I think it's I don't think it's a wise choice, anti depends on a lot of factors but it's not a wise choice to like think of Amazon is your exclusive e-commerce player me the brands that I see that have healthier businesses. With Amazon are ones that sell to multiple e-commerce players and are investing in other ones not investing like investors but you know investing time and energy into getting their business up and running and marketing and things like that on some of the other players and so that's where, I think that some of your business model is feeling more Diversified but if you thinking that you're going to be exclusive on Amazon I mean they change the game there every 6 months, and you know it only takes kind of like one change that's in congress with your business model to be out. [48:17] And here maybe that's private label or meet you maybe they want your private label of your product or maybe they either come to you with terms like negotiation terms that are unacceptable to you or that you can't you can't actually if you can accommodate, can I still run a business and if they're your only Taylor you're kind of in a really tough spot, yeah I don't think they're setting up Amazon to be exclusive I think they see Amazon becoming a de-facto exclusive because when they look at the online players, Amazon so much bigger than everyone else to. That it's hard to build that diversity that you're talking about that that's not what they worry about that kind of say my brain is priced wrong is right now so maybe there is a strategy right now. I don't help Amazon be the the 800-pound gorilla well and I think that's where it's important, that's what's important to look on Amazon at some of your third party Partners I need your address with Amazon you've presumably all are presumably also selling to other people that are reselling on Amazon it is important to look at their ass and selling across multiple platforms, Samsung, and so you know they're giving you any not might be still small but they're giving you some distribution also they're also giving you an alternative if you don't want to sell directly to Amazon anymore but you still and have a presence there and have a good brand experience and help you have sales, Anthem anything that's kind of like a another diversification strategy you look so, so is private label it was kind of jump into that a little bit what are you tell Brands when they say hey I'm really concerned that you know Amazon just opened up a private label in my category. [49:50] How do you explain that I mean I think they should be concerned but it's not. Eminem retailer tender copying top selling products it's not too similar differences you know how they're able to manipulate the digital shelf to be able to savor products. Over others, and you know we don't have any like confirmation that they're doing that but it sure seems like they are when you look at the site and I know you're searching for backpacks and you know the one that looks just like the other one, private label comes up before it in the search results really totally it's something really scared about for sure but if you're also kind of going back to the concept of diversification if you've been, yeah totally. If your business is so driven by one or two skews you know you're a right candidate for it for Amazon taking on serve a private label. Copy had approached and so you know figure out how to grow other sections of your business so that you're not completely dependent on laptops Q, because Amazon Michael private label it I think it's probably a good idea and it you know I've seen them give like favoring some of the marketing and and obviously all the marketing is free for them so there, those are going to be really high origin ID on this but they look like they're just going after pretty much every category now which means I mean that makes sense for them to do. Jason: [51:26] I think you may have inadvertently given this the secret sauce away earlier I just get into the live plants category. Scot & Andrea: [51:33] Really difficult for Amazon to copy must be because they kept asking it as an interview question and they never launched it so there you go. Jason: [51:41] Exactly which is odd because I feel like that's one of the first categories than invented cologne. Scot & Andrea: [51:46] Actually I think that I actually might be irony I'm not sure. Jason: [51:52] Yes Neil thank you for that. [51:57] So I know you're going to be at IRC in a couple weeks and I understand it right that topic is tips for negotiating with Amazon can you totally ruin the irce panel. Giving our listener some of the high-level pitfalls and tips. Scot & Andrea: [52:14] Yeah yeah. Blue am so I mean the presentations really just going to talk about it I think it's another one of those areas where a little bit of Education will really help Brands be successful in their negotiations and the biggest. And the bastard of a feeling or pitfalls that I saw when I was out in the sun because she with friends is just friends not preparing for the negotiation not coming with with data me with questions you know not being prepared, I'm not really thinking through, the Amazons perspective and being kind of blindsided by some of the ass and granite Amazon desert huge so it makes sense to be helpless by the numbers, and so I will talk a little bit about that in the presentation will talk about how to prepare, you know what information to request from Amazon if you have an opportunity to do so I mean I think, an important thing is he knows the lot of times, especially some of the mid-tier the smaller hands are not actually negotiate with a live person and so how do you navigate that right like you probably negotiate with a robot doesn't look like a robot in the email comes to you but looks like a. Can a person that it's you know it's definitely an automated it's going automated process so we'll talk about how to. How to prepare am had to actually execute and then you know what kind of go through some of the typical ass from Amazon and and talk about like when he's made me sense for you like. [53:47] Who who who doesn't make sense for it to think about like the cross. Program or when would it make sense for you to invest in some of the, the larger marketing programs or or Crap allow answer you know we'll kind of talk a little bit about that. One of the things you introduce me to his this house get this wrong but like driving the car really fast with your. Foot on the gas your hands off the wheel tell tell us more about that Provisions growing quickly and scaling and it's really critical more and more automated. And so you know I'm seeing with my clients and also one of the forums like the Lincoln Group and things like that that a lot of brands are just really at the end. At the receiving end of more automation than ever before and they're hearing from their buyers you know how critical it is that they continue automated and you know not Place manual. Borders and let the system do its thing can have their hands off the wheel that's the hands off the wheel concept so you know and that's definitely you always been kind of a push it Amazon but I feel like it's getting, my friends are seeing more of it and I'm in recent here. An interest Amazon's interesting automation when you negotiate with the with that machine doesn't sound like Alexa. I mean if you get on the phone you're talking to a real person. Jason: [55:20] For now for now. Scot & Andrea: [55:21] I'm sorry Jason we're going to cut your crap allowance. Jason: [55:26] Here's the tip you're not talking to a real person when it's Sign May Day that's always. Scot & Andrea: [55:31] Chicken area. Jason: [55:34] Come on you guys don't get Amazon Fire jokes. Scot & Andrea: [55:36] No I guess I totally get it. Jason: [55:40] Scot snoody the lack of systems we have to go somewhere for him although annoyingly Scott's car can drive really fast with a hands off the wheel which I'm a little jealous. Scot & Andrea: [55:51] Do you have a self-driving car have a tablet doesn't have that that future though I got I was too early in the doctor its equivalent of having an iPhone 1 right now. Jason: [56:04] You can still drive really fast with your hands off the wheel once. Scot & Andrea: [56:07] Yeah just let me know. Jason: [56:11] Exactly and any big mistakes you see people making in negotiations. Scot & Andrea: [56:18] Yeah I mean I think this one is just giving like a specially for the platform or have experience I have significant growth and so it's like one of the first time actually talking to someone like a live person they just give too much away in the first year, that you know they don't hold back enough funding for themselves, Cindy has Amazon ever use an annual negotiation process that you every year and they're going to want more and you know you don't want to give it all away, in the in there for a couple years of Amazon you've got a kind of pre the reserves at or or just kind of the other it's just kind of, signing up for the most you can possibly do for that year from a from a Amazon funding perspective and that doesn't give you any kind of slush fund for the stuff they're going to come to you with. Fourth root beer like participation in certain marketing programs that you know they didn't know about the weekend because you know they're. A plan a little bit more in a three to six months in advance or are you know price-matching error or some chargeback store. I don't want to be in a position all year we're all of those little things are extraordinary painful cuz you already gave them like the most you could give them that you're so I always recommend a can of creating a reserved sign for yourself, you know don't like some leftover money is there be no room in your budget to pay for some of the things throughout the year. Jason: [57:43] That Prime days only two months away don't don't touch. Scot & Andrea: [57:49] So I never been a Brandon or works for me but I meant it would be really weird because there's probably this old school believing believe that you reformulation ships and I know I've been a bit more couple times and. You just see the brand raps just kind of going through there and you know it's almost like the airports Gear Drive for them there's a whole infrastructure and there's this whole, pilgrimage to Walmart meet that guy try to build a relationship drugs drinks the Dan Draper Martini lunch and all that stuff and then you probably do all that then you try to. If I go try to beats when Amazon that I won't meet with you unless you're like. Super Dee duper Top Gear brand so then now you're kind of talking to this AI machine and these brands that kind of holiday how they feel. Yeah yeah especially some of the larger more established ones that are really accustomed to working with brick-and-mortar there they believe that they will be able to see crater 6s on Amazon to forming a relationship with their buyers, and I will tell you like the last thing those buyers wanted to do it for him, bladder relationships because it's extremely time-consuming it doesn't help them execute on their initiatives might get them like that anymore Co-op, they can also get that by sending out like a hundred automated emails and so you know I still remember kind of, the concept of like Thursday Amazon buying team they're in their jeans and occasionally flip flops, I'm at the brand comes to visit and they're all wearing their suits and they want to do a line review and like that concept it's just totally lost. [59:30] Play baby and they're not going to make it they're not going to make selection choices they're going to list everything on the side so it doesn't. The best interest to learn a whole lot about the products and which ones are different from one another. So yeah I mean I definitely see a lot of her and still trying to formulation ships but I'm also seeing a lot of emerges getting like Savvy about that, he has already had a couple of turnovers and their Vendor Manager and they're realizing that like actually the best thing they can do is educate them so. About the, Phat Farm and how it works because of no sex that's really understand how the form works that I work with it and keep keep up with the changes to it I think it you know, the Amazon I think just there was a Jeff quote once and he said we're not in the business of selling things were in the business of helping people buy things and they just, Amazon believes they are a platform for selling things they don't believe they're retailer wish I think kind of speaks to you know why they don't think the relationship development super important. That's an important Point Jason spends more time with the offline guys than I do but up but I'm always. Stricken by there's the still believe there's still this belief and I'm a computer engineering guy but there's just believe that there's this Merchant King, Merchant Prince water be called Jason and you know they can predict what people are going to do and they go and they buy that hot thing in the ghetto, the create fashion themselves and that I'm console surprised how much that still exists and I think you know this this Amazon model of. [1:01:02] Why should she choose like put everything up and let the customer he just seems so obvious to me. But it really is so counter to hell all these other companies are built that that. It's the step to get even closer to that existential dilemma than they are right now which is hard to believe but just console amazing to me in the retail world that that no one else really gets that. Universal some elements of that and that's really like in my opinion when I was a fire that was like the most exciting thing about being a buyer what if you find the next big thing, like what is it what if you're the one that brought it on the side and I'm ever going to trade shows in finding like weird and scary products reticulate like the Expos and, Ambien like maybe this is like the new coconut water like we don't know what is going to be so I think there's still some elements of that but I mean definitely a lot less than than traditional retailers, stop and come from a line review I guess. Jason: [1:01:59] Well it has happened again we've used up our allotted hour Andrea thank you very much for us spending time in the educating all of us and especially for educating Scot. Scot & Andrea: [1:02:13] But thank you for having me on the show and it was really great to be here. Yeah right I said at the top of you everytime I talk to you I learned a hundred things I think I have checks at least that many boxes that is good take me awhile to counter but we're in that that neighborhood, it is reminder to listener see if you enjoyed Andrews view on Amazon brand strategy and then and other topics she's one of the speakers at internet retailer conference in exhibitions Amazon and me Workshop, which is right around the corner it'll be June 6th in Chicago, and Andrea is folks want to follow you your writing online you mentioned you got some articles coming out where's the best place that can find is that a Twitter handle or a, that chatter where where do you hang out online I am mostly on LinkedIn so you can find me on LinkedIn and it's Andrea Leigh Leigh. [1:03:05] Possible thanks again really appreciate it. Jason: [1:03:07] Yeah and we'll make sure to get that in the show now so until next time happy commercing.

Speaking From the PPC Vendor Manager Perspective, Imelda Khoo, Online Marketing Manager at Tektronix discusses how the size of a company should fit the size the fit of a PPC Project, how company culture plays a part, metrics management and narrowing and the convergence of search and social.

Speaking From the PPC Vendor Manager Perspective, Imelda Khoo, Online Marketing Manager at Tektronix discusses how the size of a company should fit the size the fit of a PPC Project, how company culture plays a part, metrics management and narrowing and the convergence of search and social.