An eCommerce Podcast Hosted by Brett Curry

Steve Chou is an eCommerce podcast host, eCommerce store owner, and former microprocessor designer.  In fact, the microprocessor running the phone in your hand was likely designed by Steve’s team. All of that to say, Steve is a pretty smart dude.

I recently saw Steve in San Diego at Social Media Marketing World where we were both speaking.  We had lunch and talked a little about Chatbots. I was instantly intrigued. Chatbots and Messenger ads have huge potential to create more helpful, more personal experiences with your brand.  All with the goal of increasing sales and building loyalty.

Here’s a quick look at what Steve and I discuss…

• The rules behind using Messenger as a business.  Facebook is very strict here. If you don’t know the rules, you’ll likely get yourself into trouble.
• How often should you send promotional messages on Messenger?
• When to run true Messenger Ads vs. when you can run other ad types on Facebook but tie in Messenger in a stealthy way (this will save you some money on ads).
• How Steve is using Messenger bots to cut down on customer service calls by 70%.
• How Steve sees using chatbots in the future.
• Steve’s favorite tools for chatbots.  
• Plus more!

Connect with Guest:
Steve Chou
via Facebook
via Twitter
via Podcast/My Wife Quit Her Job

Mentioned in This Episode:
Bumblebee Linens – Wedding Handkerchiefs, Linen Napkins & Towels
via Blog
via Facebook
via Instagram
via Pinterest

How to Create a Profitable Online Store and Sell Online – A Course On eCommerce
2019 Sellers Summit – The Ultimate eCommerce Learning Conference
ManyChat – The Easiest Way to Create Facebook Messenger Bot
Social Media Marketing World – Social Media’s Mega Conference
ShopMessage
ShopMessage Facebook Messenger – eCommerce Plugins for Online Stores – Shopify App Store

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My guest today is John Li, co-founder of Pickfu.  John is a really sharp dude, with a very unique service.  A service that started as a side project and became a standalone business sort of on accident…more on that in the episode.

Pickfu is a consumer feedback tool that allows you to get real customer feedback in minutes.  This has driven insights into product page enhancements, better product imagery, better ads, better Amazon listings and more.  

In this episode, we dive into some of the top learnings John and his team have gained from the myriad of tests run on their platform.  Some are quite surprising. I’m confident that you’ll take away a few things you need to test or change to improve your sales on and off Amazon.  Here’s a highlight of what we cover:

• Surprising learnings from testing images and how your biases might be hurting your results on and off Amazon.
• 3 keys to better descriptions on your Amazon listings that consistently outperform the norm.
• How to find out what features and benefits a customer is really buying when they buy your product so you can highlight those features and benefits in your ads.  
• How there are probably some things that you think are “good enough” that are probably costing you sales.  

• How to properly run a test and how to ask consumers good questions.  If you ask bad questions, you’ll get bad feedback…the kind that’s unhelpful and not actionable.

• Plus more!
• If you are interested in Checking out PickFu Click Here

Mentioned in Episode:
PickFu Which One Won
Made to Stick” Book by Chip & Dan Heath – Amazon
How to Use YouTube to Scale eCommerce Ads – Smart Marketer
2-Minute Crash Course on YouTube & TrueView Ads, with Brett Curry – Smart Marketer
BOOM by Cindy Joseph
Steve Chou (“My Wife Quit Her Job”) – Co-Founder of Bumblebee Linens, host of the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, and host of Sellers Summit

Connect with Guest:
Via Linkedin
Via Twitter
PickFu – Split Testing, Optimization and Market Feedback Platform
Via Linkedin
Via Facebook
Via Instagram

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I just got back from a trip to the Amazon HQ in Seattle. Chris Tyler, our Director of Amazon Services, and I were there visiting with our Amazon DSP reps (more on DSP in a minute).  We recently found out we were the fastest growing agency in 2018 in terms of DSP spend. We got to preview new audience targeting options, discuss new ad options coming soon to the Amazon ecosystem and more…Blow your mind kinda awesome stuff.

If you’re not familiar with it, Amazon DSP (stands for Demand Side Platform) is a way to run display ads on and off Amazon targeting Amazon shoppers.  With DSP you can run retargeting ads targeting people who’ve visited your product listings on Amazon but didn’t purchase. You can also target people who’ve visited your competitors’ products on Amazon but haven’t purchased.  And there are a TON more audience targeting options to consider. Here’s a quick look at what we cover on the episode:

• Highlights from our Amazon trip including dogs, domes, and, of course, great coffee!
• What about Amazon DSP makes it “blow your mind awesome?”
• What are the top audiences to target with DSP and where should you start?
• What kind of return can you expect from DSP?
• How to use DSP to build loyalty with Recapture, Reorder and/or Cross-sell/Up-sell campaigns.
• How does Amazon DSP compliment Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands – the core of Amazon advertising?
• Plus more!

Connect with Guest
via Linkedin
via Facebook
OMG Commerce

Mentioned in this Episode
Business Insider – Amazon is taking over Seattle
Anchorhead Coffee
Starbucks opens its first Reserve store in Seattle – Business – CNN.com
Amazon DSP – Amazon Advertising
Amazon Marketing Services, or AMS – Amazon Advertising
Sponsored Products – Services – Amazon.com
Amazon Reporting: Halo Products – Rise Interactive
Amazon Seller Central

2-Minute Crash Course on YouTube & TrueView Ads, with Brett Curry – Smart Marketer
How to Use YouTube to Scale eCommerce Ads – Smart Marketer

Ro Bhatia has some serious eCommerce chops.  He started his career at Google, then spent 5 years at Yahoo, then worked for eBay with merchants, then ran the dot com division for Home Depot.  Now he’s the Chief Product and Strategy officer at Limelight eCommerce.

In this episode we dig into growth tactics that you probably either haven’t thought of or aren’t leveraging properly.  Ro has a wealth of experience and he dishes it out in this episode. Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• If you’re using chat on your site, you’re probably making one fatal flaw.  Here’s how to fix it quickly, plus Ro’s favorite chat tool.
• Cross-sells and upsets make up 30% of eCommerce sales! We talk about Ro’s favorite ways to boost cross-sells, upsells and downsells.
• In the new relationship economy cost of acquisition is high, and bumping AOV is critical.  If you don’t have a high enough AOV your marketing options will be limited.
• How to properly use data to create buckets of users to show them the right message at the right time (plus an embarrassing eBay story).
• How to delight your customers like Netflix does…(and how “stale” is a kiss of death)
• How to build loyalty and beat friendly churn.
• The best remarketing cohorts to build and how to communicate with them differently.  
• How to put all of this together to create a compounding growth effect!

Connect With Guest:
Via email
Via LinkedIn
Via Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:
LimeLight
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
LiveChat – Live Chat Software and Help Desk Software
Drift – Conversational Marketing Platform
Intercom – Customer Messaging Platform
MailChimp
Zapier – The Easiest Way to Automate Your Work
Twilio – Communication APIs for SMS, Voice, Video, and Authentication
Casper – The Best Bed for Better Sleep

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My buddy, Johnny Pinto, has a unique product, a unique story, and a unique approach to eCommerce growth.  He’s the CEO and Co-Founder of Boom.Boom. Boom.Boom produces an essential oil based inhaler that refreshes and energizes you.  These types of inhalers are super popular in South East Asia, and Boom.Boom is determined to make them popular in the US too. The story of Boom.Boom is chock full of fantastic marketing and entrepreneurial lessons.

John got his start in business working for an LA start-up that would later become SnackNation which is now a 200 person thriving company.  When John joined he was one of 3 employees. That’s also where he met our mutual friend and host of the eCommerce Influence podcast – Austin Brawner.  

I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and I’m confident you will too.  Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How John has masterfully used bootstrap marketing and “sampling” to propel his company’s growth – you should too!  
• How John and his wife Chelsea got on Shark Tank.
• What he learned from being in the tank and why they ultimately walked away from a deal.
• How they went viral on Twitter AND ended up on Ellen.  
• How he’s perfected the art of boot-strap marketing.  Most eCommerce companies overlook this to their detriment.  
• Their philosophy for building long-form PDP pages that convert!
• What’s next for BoomBoom!

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:
Boom.Boom
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Shark Tank
Boom.Boom on Shark Tank
Building a Story Brand
“Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

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Austin Brawner is a legend in the eCommerce space, namely because his podcast – Ecommerce Influence – is one of the most popular in the industry.  Austin has worked with, and is friends with, many of the top DTC brands in eCommerce – MVTM Watches, Pura Vida Bracelets, Blenders Eyewear, Four Sigmatic and many others.  In fact, we reminisce on the podcast about a dinner we both attended in San Diego with the founders of those companies all together in a room hanging out and swapping stories.

What separates eCommerce brands that scale vs. those that stall and plateau? What separates the Bonobos and Away Luggage companies of the world from an eCommerce company that hits a ceiling at 5 or 10 million per year in sales?  Austin has a unique perspective on this topic, having walked alongside dozens of the biggest eCommerce brands of our generation.

In this episode Austin and I break down the following:

• What you need to know about AOV and LTV and how it directly impacts your ability to scale.
• How product market fit impacts scale potential – and why combining a hungry market with a product people want to identify with is so important.  
• Demand Generation vs. Demand Capture…which is better and which lends itself to scale.
• The road map to building a team and scaling your business
• Why a CEO’s role is mainly about people and product and what that means.
• How and when to hire an agency.
• Why it’s hard to scale single SKU businesses and why line extension is imperative.

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Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:
Brand Growth Experts
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Coalition
The eCommerce Influence Podcast
MVMT
Away
Roman
Hims
2PM
Shark Tank
Tecovas

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The first glowing testimonial I heard about Joana Galvao was from Ezra Firestone. Next was my buddy, Jared Mitchell, of Skincare by Alana. Joana was described as a designer who “Gets it” – who understands how design impacts online experience and sales.

She recently spoke at Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego and I heard she brought down the house. So I wanted her to come on the podcast and talk about how design and visuals impact shopping behavior. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The branding triad and where most businesses fall short.
• How color can influence experience and results…and a truly mind-blowing laundry detergent user experience that illustrates this beautifully.
• How we’re wired to make assumptions at the subconscious level about whether something is expensive or cheap, quality or shoddy…all within seconds. You need to incorporate this for your products!
• How your product packaging should engage all of the senses.
• How to make your copy more visually appealing.
• Joana’s 5-Step Process that every brand should go through for better performance.
• Plus more!

Connect With Guest:
Via Website
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Via Pinterest

Mentioned in this episode:
GiF Design Studios
via LinkedIn
via Facebook
via Twitter
via Instagram
Traffic & Conversion Summit
BOOM by Cindy Joseph
Skincare by Alana
Lewis Howes
Marie Forleo
Learn More About Marie Forleo’s B-School
Selena Soo
Brian Smith
Visit Starbucks Reserve
Creative Market
PickFu
Original Grain

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Connor Young is a bit of a health nut – and an exercise enthusiast. He’s also an entrepreneur.

He’s combined his passions into a powerful and growing commerce business called Ample Foods. Connor and his team are doing a lot of things right with Ample. What potentially stands above the other wins is that they have achieved two very successful crowdfunding campaigns. The first was a traditional crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which set the platform’s record for highest funded project in the food category. The second was an equity crowdfunding campaign that raised just under $800,000 on a $15 million valuation.

If you’re launching a new product or considering a crowdfunding project or equity funding project you need to check out this episode. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• 3 elements of any great crowdfunding pitch
• Why your crowdfunding pitch needs to go viral and how Connor did it for Ample Foods
• Use crowdfunding both to launch a company or a new product
• Why Connor would skip hiring a PR firm for his crowdfunding campaign if he had to do it all over again
• How to use Facebook Ads and Influencers for a successful campaign
• How “all the work” is in the pre-launch
• How to set your goal and why it’s important to be strategic about your goal
• Why momentum especially in the first 2 days is so important.
• When to consider your campaign a failure
• Plus more

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:
Ample Foods
via Website
via LinkedIn
via Facebook
via Twitter
via Instagram
500 Startups
Indiegogo
Kickstarter
Sequoia Capital
Andreesen Horowitz
Y Combinator

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We’ve all had the following experience.  We’re on a quest for a specific product hoping if will fulfill a very specific need.  So we visit a product page on Amazon or another eCommerce site hoping that this might be the product we’ve been eagerly searching for….But, to our disappointment the product page doesn’t clearly tell us if the product will meet our need or not.  So we don’t buy.  Uh-oh.

Pop quiz.  What can increase customer engagement, improve conversion rates by 2-10x, and drive substantial organic traffic?  Easy - Q&A content.  My guest this week is James Arnold, the Co-Founder of Answer Base a SaaS platform that makes it easy to collect and leverage Q&A and FAQ content.  In this episode we dive into the following:

• Why Q&A content on product details pages is so powerful
• Taking a cue from Amazon where and how to use Q&A content on PDPs
• How to build a Knowledge Based that answers 80%+ of your shoppers questions
• How to structure your Q&A content to rank well on Google….HINT:  Google LOVES Q&A Content.  And so do shoppers.  
• How to leverage FAQ pages
• Plus more!

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Connect with James Arnold - Co-Founder at Answerbase.com

Via LinkedIn

Answerbase.com - Answerbase Q&A Software - Add Q&A to Your Website

Via LinkedIn

Via Facebook

Via Twitter

Via YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

RVupgrades

“Why We Buy” Book by Paco Underhill - Amazon

eCommerce Evolution - Episode 107 - Anmol Oberoi

ePestSupply

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Episode Transcript

Brett:

Well hello and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. Today we are talking about answering your shoppers questions through the use of Q & A content, FAQ pages. We're talking about how to use that specific content to increase conversions and even increase traffic. This is going to be extremely useful, practical information you can use to grow your store.

Brett:

Hey, Brett Curry here. Before we dive into today's topic, I want to talk quickly about YouTube ads.

Brett:

People ask me all the time, what makes for a great YouTube ad? And it's true, the ad is the hardest part for getting YouTube to work. Now, I love the campaign structure. I love audience targeting, and I love tinkering with bids and using the smart bid algorithm, and I even like budget management. I like all that behind the scenes stuff, but I've seen it time and time again where the exact same campaign structure just limps along with a mediocre video. But you get the right video with the right message that resonates with people, and that same campaign structure just takes off. It scales. And so over the last couple of years, my team and I, we've been collecting good YouTube ads. We've been watching, we've been paying attention and looking at our own clients, looking at the numbers, finding what are ads that resonate and work on YouTube. And so we started building this little guide, this little guide that we use internally.

Brett:

And we started categorizing ads and giving them fun names like The Manifesto and the UGC Mashup and the Have It All. And so we started kind of breaking down what elements in these videos make them work. And so I was speaking at a recent event, and I just happened to mention that this resource existed, and people sort of clamored for it. Like everyone's like, "Hey, I want to see the guide. I want to see that resource. I want to see all these successful ads." And so that's what we've done. We put together this resource, kind of first time ever, going to share it with a broader audience. It's free. So check it out and get our list of winning YouTube ad formulas with lots of examples. Let this be your inspiration for your next killer YouTube ad.

Brett:

So this is a free resource. We'll link to it in the show notes to this show, but you can also go to OMGcommerce.com, click on resources and then guides, and it's the YouTube Ad Templates and Guide. Check it out and I hope it inspires your next killer YouTube ad campaign. And now back to the show.

Brett:

I'm delighted to welcome to the show my guest today, he's the cofounder of Answerbase. Answerbase was started in 2007 and my guest Mr. James Arnold has been helping run the company since that time. He now works with all their enterprise clients and he is a wealth of knowledge on this topic. And so with that, James, welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time.

James:

Thanks for having me, Brett. Excited to talk about a Q & A and what it's doing for eCommerce stores.

Brett:

Yeah, absolutely. You guys have built a really phenomenal solution here, a great platform and tool. And we'll, we'll get into that later in the show. Want to talk about some of the hows and whys behind Q & A content and FAQ content because I think there's something here that likely a lot of the listeners are potentially either missing out on or not fully leveraging. And so we're going to go deep on a couple topics. We'll talk about some specific client case studies as well, but walk me through Q & A content. What is Q & A content and why is it so important to include on your website? And we'll talk about kind of the how and where and things like that in a minute. But first, what is it and why is it so important?

James:

So, question and answer content, when we refer to that, is about other questions being asked about products that eCommerce merchants are selling and the answers that best address those issues and problems. So I'm sure many people, or most people, have seen it on Amazon's product pages, how they have questions and answers around products. So yeah, but it's really important to provide that content, to provide that engagement, and really just solving the problems for potential customers that are leading up to a purchase, whether that be really high in the funnel or really low in the funnel towards the conversion.

Brett:

Yeah, it's really interesting because sometimes what's listed in the bullet points, what's listed in the product description, what's in the specs of a product, maybe that doesn't quite answer a question or maybe it leaves a little bit of ambiguity out there. But a lot of times if you look at, and Amazon's a perfect example of this, you look at that Q & A content, a lot of times the question that's right there at the top, or maybe it's second or third, is the question you're asking about that product. Right? Does it fit this application? Will this work on my skin type? Will this upset my stomach? Things like that, whatever. And that Q & A content sometimes gets right to the heart of the matter and answers the question that someone has when they're looking, and I know it makes a big, big difference.

Brett:

We're going to talk, go into a lot of details as we go here, but I think one of the things to always keep in mind as we're trying to create this great shopping experience for our customers is what would someone ask if they were about to buy this product in the store? What questions might they ask a sales assistant? What questions might they ask whoever's helping them before they buy. Sometimes that can be pretty, pretty useful. Why, other than what I just said, and then maybe I summed it up, but what are the whys behind why this content is so powerful, so useful?

James:

Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, obviously everybody knows that you need to have a really good product description, and that impacts your conversions. But you have different people who have different ways that they prefer to get information. I mean, not everybody wants to read through a few paragraphs of a product description in order to find the answer that they're looking for, which is really the roadblock to a sale. So you'll notice even on Amazon's landing pages, I mean they have, or product pages, they have the ability to ask your question even before you dig into the product specs because they want to make that as easy as possible to hit the nail on the head for that specific customer and what they're looking for. So the amazing thing about the engagement there is that you can actually use that engagement to then identify the most popular questions that are asked and then look to revise their product description from there.

James:

You know, it's funny. So retail stores, I mean they... I went in to buy some furniture the other day and I asked the retailer a question about the product, and you know, very nice a woman, but she didn't have the answer to the question that I wanted. And I had to kind of press a little bit to get a manager. So it took several minutes to get the answer to the question. Not minutes, I mean it was a bit of time.

James:

So there's online content, you have the ability to give the user a great experience all the time. You know what's being asked over and over again. You're going to refine that answer so that it's really serving every single customer well. And once you do it well once, that content is not subject to a bad day or a bad attitude one day, or even just needing to rush to lunch or these other things that sometimes you experience with the retail experience. You have a chance to have a great experience all the time for those customers.

Brett:

Yeah, it's so funny. And I love making the offline comparison just because it's a great visual. I went to Walmart a few weeks ago, needed to get an Apple TV, and we kind of wanted in a hurry, not that we really need it in a hurry, but wanted it. Anyway, so walk in, talk to a lady like, "Hey Apple TVs, where do you keep those?" She's like, "Oh yeah, we don't carry those." Like, "You do." And so we're talking like, "No. No. We don't carry them." So I said, "Okay, where are your Rokus?" Because I knew they would be close. And she's like, "Oh yeah, those are over here." Well, the Apple TVs were right next to it. Anyway, it's one of those things where that's not a helpful experience.

Brett:

I've also had some experiences where you're like, "Hey, how does this product work?" "I don't know how it works, but it's over here. Just go get it." But I think if you think about it, there's some online experiences that are that way too. Right? Or you wouldn't want to come to a clerk and say, "Hey, will this product work for this application?" "I don't know. Here's the manual. Just read it."

Brett:

But that's what we do with our product pages. Right? Someone goes to look at a product with a specific question, a specific need, and rather than getting that answer, we give them the product manual or obviously it's a little shorter, a little better hopefully. But our product descriptions can almost feel like that at times, where I compare it to... One of my best shopping experiences was with a local company that sells high end barbecue grills. And the guy that kind of runs a place, he's become my barbecue Yoda. I talk to him and he always gives me advice, but I can ask him any detail about how to cook something, or will this grill do this for that, and he knows the answer immediately. And he asks the right questions, just a beautiful experience. But-

James:

That's a great point. I mean my same retail experience, and there's been a few of these where you go and you ask a question about the product. Well, the person goes straight to their phone or computer screen and they actually look it up on their own website. So having that content available as self service content, and even can help service the other retail locations that you might be servicing as well. That's, yeah. I mean it's just, it's happening right now.

Brett:

Yeah. It's so valuable. And so you talked a little bit about Amazon, where now you can even ask some questions before you get to the product description. Is that where you're seeing it being effective, where you're posting this ability for someone to ask a question. Where are you often recommending that be placed on the page?

James:

I mean, certainly within the product pages, there's a couple points. So, you want to engage the user early on. So, typically under the product title, you'll see a couple calls to actions. First of all, the number of reviews, and the five star review that it has, or four star or whatever that is. And then typically right under that you want to show how many questions have been asked and then give an easy ability to go ahead and ask that question. So, a little bit further down on the page, you do list out the most popular questions and answer combinations for that product, and then obviously have a very easy way for them to post their new question on the page as well. So, there's a couple of things that can do for you from an SEO standpoint and a conversion optimization standpoint. And then also saving time, so your staff doesn't need to answer the same questions over and over again via email or a contact form or something like that.

Brett:

Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of posting the most frequently asked questions, most popular questions and their corresponding answers, because I think if you look at the way people shop, and I would definitely fall into this category, I don't love asking the question. I don't love getting involved in a chat conversation with an online merchant. But I will definitely scan those questions and see if my question is being answered, and then I'm good to go. And that's the way a lot of people like to shop. Some people like to ask the questions. Some people like to be involved in that dialogue. Most people do not. And so if you have it there, that's great. And so I want to definitely talk about the traffic side of things because that's the G commerce know we're more of a traffic agency, so that side really excites me.

Brett:

But let's talk first about the conversion side. So, what are you often seeing? So now you've got the ability for someone to ask the question. You're also posting the most frequent questions and their corresponding answers. What are you seeing that do to conversion rates?

James:

Sure. So, there's a couple things that are going on there. So a customer's engaging, you don't necessarily need to post a new question to pose your question. So when they pose the questions, you can auto suggest results that are already available. So they don't need to wait for an answer, they can get the answer immediately. So we see about up to 80% of the questions that are posed through the ask question field are addressed automatically. So that's existing content that's addressing the answers immediately without any new engagements from the eCommerce merchants.

Brett:

Great. James, what percentage did you say? What percentage did you say were answering?

James:

80%, up to 80%.

Brett:

Great. Great. Awesome.

James:

So that's one touch point. For questions that are answered, we actually have another case study on our site where, RVupgrades.com, and they see 75% of the questions that are answered through Answerbase convert into a sale. So there's been studies in the past-

Brett:

Just to clarify real quickly. First of all, what was the merchant again?

James:

RV Upgrades.

Brett:

And what do they sell?

James:

RV accessories.

Brett:

RV.

James:

Anything you want for a recreational vehicle.

Brett:

I heard Harvey for some reason.

James:

Oh. Okay. No. RV-

Brett:

RV, got it, recreational vehicles. Fantastic. Totally makes sense.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. Think motor homes.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So someone actually poses the question and whether that's answered in the 80% that are answered through the auto suggest or whether someone actually has to answer it. What you're saying is 75% of the people that ask a question and get it answered, they convert. Is that what you're saying?

James:

Convert to a sale. Correct.

Brett:

Wow. So, I love the psychology behind why people buy and what leads to purchase and things like that. I'm sure there's several things going on here. One, just the value of getting a question answered is super important. But I know I've seen studies here, there's a great book that I've referenced before called Why We Buy by Paco Underhill and he talks about the physical store shopping experience. But there's something to be said about once you start engaging, if you engage with a salesperson, you're more likely to purchase, start engaging with the website, you're more likely to purchase.

Brett:

I even remember reading some material from people that were in the catalog business from back in the day where they said if you can just get someone to start even clicking, filling out a check box on the order form, if you just get them started, they'll start ordering. It's like just getting them to take an action. I think there's some psychology there as well, just getting them to take action. But are you seeing that fairly consistently where people that interact and ask a question, they're much more likely to convert?

James:

We're seeing a lot of conversions through the Q & A activity. We track who touches Q & A. We're tracking multiple things there as far as who's asking the questions, obviously, who's looking at the existing content, and it's just a significant amount of conversions coming through from that engagement. So yeah, depending on the size of the site and how many current page views they have, I mean that'll determine how many people are posing questions or asking questions, and then what that flow looks like. But yeah, we've seen a very healthy... Our customers, we look it to give them multiples on their investment that they invest into Answerbase, and we've seen that in spades.

Brett:

Great. Great. That's awesome. Let's talk a little bit, and again we'll get to the traffic side of the equation in a minute, but let's talk about FAQ pages. We're talking right now about putting FAQs and answers, question and answers, on a product detail page. What about FAQ pages? I know we got some considerations there from schema markup and a variety of other things, but talk to me about FAQ pages and how those work.

James:

Yeah, they're really powerful. You can dynamically build these pages, and like you said, I mean Google and other search engines recognize the schema markup for certain types of content. So you can break that down into the microdata to let them know what's a question, what's an answer, et cetera. And so we can manage this in a couple of different ways for our customers. So, if they have more short form answers, maybe less than 250 words for the answer, you can break that down into a really high quality, most popular frequently asked questions and have that serve you very well, and even getting traffic on its own and serving the customer well through that.

James:

And then for the longer form content, we actually turn those into landing pages of their own that are indexable, and their schema markup, if you have community features enabled for QA page, which is specific to that. So Google and other search engines recognize what's there too. So, if you have an approach where you know what you're going to be servicing on your product page, you know what makes sense for an FAQ page, you want to still engage the customer.

James:

I mean FAQs, nobody really wants to read through 30 questions to try to find their question. So to make that easily searchable, easily browsable, is very important. I mean they're important but it needs to be done well in order to really service the customer well.

Brett:

100% makes sense. And you know what's really interesting about... so we could maybe transition here to the traffic side a little bit, but as we look at how people are searching differently on search engines, there is an increase in voice search. And so quick, quick plug, episode 107 I interview Ann Moll from Emitter and we talk about voice commerce and what's going on there, and voice search and things like that. But as people interact with either a Google home device or even just their mobile phone, or Amazon Alexa or whatever, a lot of the searches being done there are posed more in the form of a question. And so Google especially loves returning that FAQ content if you pose your query like a question.

Brett:

So what are you guys seeing in terms of whether it's the Q & A content on a product detail page or whether it's FAQ page, what are you seeing in terms of traffic and ranking and things like that?

James:

For sure. I mean, we've been in business since 2007, so we have a large, a long amount of time that we've been able to see what Q & A content does and how that gets gobbled up into search and spit out and what the results are there. We have some case studies where we spawn a new landing page for the Q & A threads where it makes sense to and have those indexable. And as the content continues to grow, we've seen year, over year, over year organic traffic grows to those Q & A landing pages through Google. So similar with a markup, you can choose whether you want those to be featured snippets or not, have them be featured snippets. Different merchants have different preferences there with their SEO teams and agencies. But yeah, we have customers where when you search, they'll be in the featured snippets. We've quadrupled the organic traffic for one particular merchant, which we have a case study on, who's Epes Supply. On our site there, you can see that case study. So-

Brett:

What you mean by that is you've taken, prior to using Answerbase and really leveraging this Q & A content and FAQ content, since that time you've quadrupled their traffic that were getting traffic from search engines?

James:

Yeah. So we're responsible for over 75% of their organic traffic now and over 50% of their overall traffic. So that includes the directs and all the other acquisition sources and referrals. So the most interesting thing about that traffic, I mean traffic's great, but it needs to convert for you.

Brett:

Absolutely.

James:

We have seen Google Analytics under the users area, they have a average lifetime value, our customer lifetime value stat, and we're able to track that and have the Q & A content be recognized under its own line item there. So we've seen that the traffic going through the Q & A content, specifically, has an average lifetime value up to two times higher than the normal Google traffic that's been coming in. And what that really speaks to is where these people are who are asking questions, where they are in the customer journey.

James:

A lot of times if they're on the site, or if they're on another eCommerce site and that merchant has not addressed the product question on their site, the first thing they'll do is they'll go up in their Chrome bar, they'll ask the question right there, a Google result will pop up, and if you're in that spot and you can fill that need, you can build that trust because you have the expertise around the product and then a really quick call to action to go ahead and purchase from you to take advantage of that product. So it's a really powerful engine for drawing traffic and we've seen that with many of our customers. And again, since 2007 we've seen uphill's chart, up into the right as far as organic traffic and what Q & A's been able to do.

Brett:

Yeah. In my opinion it's kind of, you can almost look at it as an added bonus. It's a pretty large added bonus. It's really valuable and really enticing. But I think even if you just looked at this subject from purely a conversion optimization standpoint, it's totally worth it. You will see better conversions and then to add to that that hey, your organic traffic can increase and it's going to be really good quality organic traffic. Because what you said totally makes sense. If I type in just a really broad keyword, something like ceramic grill or something, that's one thing. But then if I type can I do this on a ceramic grill, or how hot can I grill, or can I grill and smoke and some of these other things, that really indicates how serious I am.

Brett:

And then like you said, it shows that, some questions show that you're really closer to making a decision. You're further along in your journey, than maybe just a really generic query. And I think the beauty of this is, and we'll talk in a minute about how your tool kind of brings us all together, but you're really trying to focus in on the questions that are most frequently asked. And a lot of times these are buyer questions. Right? These are the questions people are asking before they say yes. So then you can leverage those for people that are asking those questions to Google and they end up at your site. That's pretty awesome.

James:

For sure. Yeah, we look at it as you have the short term benefits of the conversion and the reduction in duplicate questions, so just being able to say cost there on your customer service policy as well as increasing conversions at the same time. And then you have the long term play, which is the building of that content and getting that organic traffic growing and being a new customer acquisition channel for you over time. And what's interesting about that, I mean, if you read many posts about content marketing, what should you be writing about? Many times, if not most times, they'll say, "See what your customers are asking about."

James:

And they tell you to go to your customer service people, go into your ticketing system, see what's the most commonly asked questions and use that as material to create value as far as content goes. So we see this as well. So it naturally happens for the Q & A engagement. But what you can do is you can track that engagement. You can see what is turning into traffic there. You can see what's turning into conversions and then you can use that to guide your content marketing, what has proven to already convert, what's proven to already build traffic at a nice growth trend, and then you can do a deep dive. You can do a deep dive in a video. You can do a deep dive in blog posts, and really you know it's worth your time and effort to dedicate resources towards that topic because it's serving your target audience.

Brett:

I love it. I love it. Well James, let's talk specifically then about Answerbase because I know you guys have built a phenomenal tool, a tool that's used by some really large brands, and challenging brands, and growing brands as well. How does Answerbase work and how do you guys help make this process easy?

James:

We have really easy integration in the product pages. That's where everything starts. We have both APIs and a widget that people can plug in. That will power the calls to actions on the product page as far as being able to ask a question and being able to see the most popular questions per product. Everything starts there because as soon as you, if you have an active store, you're going to see engagement almost immediately from your customers and you can just get that content train moving for you. And then we have a knowledge base and community features. If you want a community, we have it, so that can build alongside and build those landing pages out and get the engagement even from other customers who have purchased the same product, et cetera, in order to build that content out and be able to see that organic traffic growth that we've been discussing there.

James:

So those are really the two main pieces of Answerbase's integration. You have all of the administration tools and moderation tools that you need to manage the content and users, et cetera. But those are really the foundation of what we've built and what brings value to the merchants there.

Brett:

Very cool. And you guys integrate with essentially all the major shopping cart platforms, website platforms. I'm sure you're platform agnostic.

James:

Yeah, we're agnostic. We have, again, we have JavaScript snippets that you can plug in if you don't want to really dig into APIs. We have entire communities that are built off of our API as well for some of our enterprise customers. And all those are available on our business plan. The customers can choose how deep they want to dive in. But it could literally be a half hour install, if not less than that, for some of the platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify. We have one click install and then that gets the engagement going for you, and then you can do whatever you want from there.

Brett:

Awesome. What tips would you give someone on it, if they're just getting started? So if someone's listening to this and they say, "Hey, obviously Amazon's doing this and that makes a lot of sense." Because you guys are talking about these increased conversion rates and traffic and increase and stuff like that, and people really hopefully are getting excited. What are kind of the tips for where you start? What would you tell the merchant listing? What integrations, what features should they use first?

James:

Get the product page working for you. You'll see an immediate impact on conversions there. Again, that's a very quick thing to do, as far as the install, that can be under 10 minutes for some of the platforms that we have integrated into their app stores. So if you have traffic, existing traffic where your users can engage immediately, that's the first step. And then everything spawns from that because you're going to start answering questions. Those answers are going to start being answered automatically, and that's a great place to start.

James:

If you're even a small store, I mean, we've had some customers that have started with nothing and they just had a lot of knowledge about the products that they were going to sell. And so they can import and that's, depending on what they want to do there, but we had one particular customer import I think like a thousad Q & A combinations, really great content that they'd built out. They made that available. Once they imported, it automatically spawns those landing pages and they were seeing a few hundred thousand visitors after a year through that content, just using what's up here in their head in order to just communicate that in a clear way and communicate that in a way that Google really likes with original good content.

Brett:

It's awesome. I love it. I'm checking out the website right now, Answerbase.com. It looks like you have plans starting at $19 a month to get basic features in Answerbase, Q & A platform, and then goes up a little bit from there, but seems very affordable, very approachable, very usable both for small business on up to enterprise. Any comments or thoughts there?

James:

We set the plans up and the pricing in order to ensure that you're getting, our customers are getting a healthy return on their investment, and we can track that and report that to our customers as well. So it should be an easy decision, even within the 30 day trial period for active sites. I mean they should be able to see a return on investment through that. So yeah, I mean our goal is to provide value and build value, and obviously make it be a great decision for any commerce merchant to have on their side.

Brett:

Awesome. Check it out at answerbase.com. James Arnold, ladies and gentlemen. Any resources, tips? Where can people check out some of these case studies you were referring to, and then any closing thoughts, James?

James:

Yeah, just they can go to our site. They can look under customer success and see some of the case studies there. And certainly servicing customers has always been an essential part of converting sales. But customer support content hasn't really been utilized as it needs to be in order to become a customer acquisition source. So just understanding where those overlap and being able to effectively utilize that content can do great things for these merchants.

Brett:

Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Love this topic. Love the benefits here that people can can get under the customer success tab. I see the RV Upgrades case study and many others. So check that out as well. Good stuff. James, really appreciate the time and thanks for coming on and educating us about Q & A content, FAQ pages and all this good stuff.

James:

All right, appreciate it Brett.

Brett:

Yeah, absolutely. So that's a wrap for today. As always, we'd love to get your feedback, any other topic suggestions you have or feedback on the show. We'd love to get that review on iTunes if you feel so inclined. That helps other people discover the show. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

As some of you may know, my very first foray into online marketing was in the crazy world of SEO. That was circa 2004. After creating some wins for an online print shop I was hooked on SEO. In the early days of OMG Commerce, SEO was our bread and butter. Now it’s still an important channel, but as Google has become more of a pay-to-play environment, more companies come to us wanting help with ads. But…ignoring SEO is a mistake. The best, biggest and enduring eCommerce companies have an SEO strategy and they execute it. My guest on the podcast today is one of the very first OMG Commerce employees, Brandi Johnston. She runs our SEO department and works with Amazon organic optimization.

In this episode we cover a host of practical tips and insights related to SEO including:

• How SEO has changed since 2013 and what that means for us today.
• What are the easiest SEO wins merchants should focus on?
• What are some SEO wins that take a little more work but still pay off in the long run?
• What is a rel=canonical tag and a cross-domain rel=canonical tag and could we get any nerdier?
• What is a zombie page and how doe they impact SEO results?
• What are the top SEO tools, blogs and extensions to consider?
• Plus more!

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:
Matt Cutts – Gadgets, Google, and SEO
Schema.org
Brian N Beane – Professional Coach, Trainer, and Speaker
SEO Tools
Moz – SEO Software, Tools, and Resources for Smarter Marketing
Moz – Whiteboard Friday
Search Engine Journal – SEO, Search Marketing News and Tutorials
Search Engine Land – News On Search Engines
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
Backlinko
Blumenthals’ Blog
Local U
Whitespark
BrightLocal
Schema App
Search Console in Google Analytics- Search Console Help
Think with Google – Discover Marketing Research and Digital Trends
SEMrush – Online Visibility Management Platform
Screaming Frog – SEO Spider Tool and Crawler Software
AnswerThePublic – That Free Visual Keyword Research and Content Ideas Tool

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My guest today is a man who needs no introduction. His podcast, Ecommerce Fuel, is one of the most downloaded Ecommerce podcasts on the planet. And Andrew runs one of the largest most successful private eCommerce forums – EcommerceFuel.com.

Each year Andrew sends out a poll to hundreds of successful merchants to get a pulse check on all things eCommerce. It covers an incredible number of details including growth rates, conversion rates, On-Amazon and Off-Amazon performance, ad performance, profitability trends and much, much more. I wanted to have Andrew on the podcast to dig into some of the most fascinating insights from the report and to share what we believe these insights mean to our community and to you as a merchant.

Here are a few things we cover:

• What is the future of drop-shipping as a business model?
• What surprises came from the on-Amazon growth stats that weren’t maybe as high as expected this year?
• The stark growth contrast between private label sellers vs. resellers
• The number #1 traffic source for successful eCommerce merchants
• The most popular vs. most effective ad channel…spoiler alert – they aren’t the same channel! The most popular channel according to the survey was nowhere near the most effective. Quite the contrary. We explore why.
• We explore Andrew’s spin on KPI – the Kardashian Performance Indicator…this is pretty funny
• Plus much more actionable data!

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:
EcommerceFuel
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
EcommerceFuel Podcast
Ecommerce Fuel Podcast – 2019 State of the Merchant Report
EcommerceFuel Podcast – Making Sense of the Sales Tax Nightmare
Mike Jackness – President & CEO at Terran.com
Via LinkedIn
Via Twitter
ColorIt
Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE)
Traffic & Conversion Summit

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Michael Jackness is the President & CEO of Terran.com – owner of multiple commerce brands including tactical.com, wildbaby.com, icewraps.com, color it and more. He’s also the host of the EcomCrew podcast and is a fantastic trainer and speaker. I got to hang out with Mike recently at an event and I was reminded of why so many people in the eComm space look up to him. He’s a brilliant marketer and eComm store owner. In this podcast, we dive into some of the most powerful growth levers available to commence merchants today and how to best use them.

Here are a few things we go over:

• What are Mike’s tips and advice on line extension? How important is it, and how and when should store owners consider it?
• Mike’s favorite tips for cross-selling & upselling because “you win or lose by what you do on the backend.”
• The most under-leveraged assets Mike sees in his students’ businesses?
• Favorite growth levers to pull when tasked with growing an eComm biz.
• Some of your favorite recent marketing wins from Mike’s many eCommerce companies
• Underutilized growth tips for Amazon.
• How important is User Generated Content (UGC) and how to get it.

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:
Terran.com – Terran Interactive
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
EcomCrew
EcomCrew Podcast

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I’ve always loved the psychology behind why people buy. It’s what originally attracted me to sales and marketing when I was in college. I’ve always loved the study of persuasive headlines and compelling video ads. I’ll admit that I think less about shipping than I probably should. If we want to talk about pure conversion rates and growth, shipping is a huge deal.

That’s why I decided to invite Akhilesh Srivastava, CEO of Fenix Commerce, on to the show to talk about improving shipping, both pre and post-sale. Akhilesh knows a thing or two about this topic. He’s worked for big brands like Walmart, Nike, Petco, Staples, and Microsoft. Prior to starting Fenix Commerce, he was in charge of shipping and returns for eBay. He’s spent the last 10+ years living in the data behind shipping practices both on its impact on sales and the costs behind it for merchants.

Here’s a quick look at some of the fascinating points we dive into:

• How studies of eBay customers consistently revealed that 2 of the top 5 reasons people decide to buy or not buy are related both to shipping costs and shipping time.
• How the “get it by” feature can improve conversions and reduce abandoned carts by 20% or more.
• How Men’s Wearhouse is using the “get it by” feature and how it’s now been identified as their largest top-line growth opportunity for 2019….wow!
• Practical tips to lower shipping costs and improve your speed.
• How the USPS can “fill in some gaps” for you and help improve your speed of shopping

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Twitter
Fenix Commerce Inc.
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram

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In just a few short years Bill D transitioned from investment banker to single brand eCommerce store owner, to now owning and leading a portfolio of 10 eComm brands through his company, Elements Brands.

I wanted to pick Bill’s brain – one, because he’s just wicked smart, but, two, because I think all eCommerce store owners could benefit from his perspective. In this power-house episode we uncover:

• How Bill went from investment banker to owning a portfolio of growing eCommerce brands.
• What Bill looks for when he’s considering buying an eCommerce business (there are lessons here for you, whether you’re looking to sell right now or not).
• Why diversity of traffic is so important and what to consider here.
• What’s the metric to rule all metrics? No, it’s not conversion rate, or AOV, or Return on Ad Spend. (Hint: you’re probably ignoring it or not calculating it the way you should.)
• Why profits are sanity and revenue is vanity.
• How well document processes build value now and later.
• Plus much, much more!

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Elements Brands – Amplifying Awesome
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Andrew Youderian
Sellers Summit
Tim Ferriss and The 4-Hour Workweek
Klavivo
Austin Brawner – Entrepreneur and Adventurer

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Casey Guass started Viral Launch as a broke 24-year-old college drop out.  The rest is history. It’s now one of the most beloved SaaS platforms for Amazon sellers.  Like most great companies it’s gone through some serious product evolutions. But, the core has remained the same – helping Amazon Sellers rank better on Amazon.  

In this podcast, we cover a lot…and get pretty nerdy with data.  Here’s a quick look at what we discuss.

• 3 Amazon ranking factors you might be overlooking including considering your canonical url for better ranking on Google (we explain what this means in the podcast).
• How conversion rate factors into organic rankings and what to do about it.
• Why you’re likely focusing on the wrong keywords and how to shift your approach.
• Casey’s 6-step road map for ranking a product on Amazon – this is pure gold.  
• Casey’s advice that he would NOT give to clients, but might try for selling his own products.
• Why you’re thinking about Amazon PPC is probably off a bit and how you should adjust.
• How to use brand analytics data for some “blow your mind” insights.  
• Plus more!

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Via Youtube
Viral Launch
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Via Youtube
Follow the Data Podcast
2020 Sellers Summit
Steve Chou – MyWifeQuitHerJob
Brand Analytics – Amazon Seller Central
Kinetic PPC – Viral Launch

Christian Zeron started selling vintage watches online in college. What started mainly with some free time, a lot of creativity and a serious watch obsession (he’s a self-described watch geek). He’s since leveraged that into millions of YouTube views, millions in sales and over 1.8 Million monthly page views… without running ads.

I’m an ads guy so my experience with organic YouTube is minimal. I wanted to have Christian on the podcast to walk through his story and to give us practical tips on how to succeed on YouTube with organic content.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How Christian uses Gary V’s jab, jab, jab, right hook in his approach to YouTube content.
• How he’s learned from and grown from his YouTube failures
• How he grew from 0 to 68,000 YouTube Subscribers and millions of views
• How he comes up with ideas for 3 shows a week that generates raving fans.
• How his new pivot was an epic failure and how he’s retooled to make it a smashing success.
• What watches are his personal favorite
• Why selling a $10,000 watch is easier than selling a $300 watch

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Instagram
Theo & Harris – Vintage Watch Shop
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Via Youtube

Quick - what’s the best, most effective viral video ad you’ve seen?  Poo-Pourri? Purple Mattress? Maybe Squatty Potty? Chatbooks? Each of those videos (plus dozens more) were created by my guest today and his team at Harmon Brothers.  And not only where these videos viral hits…they SOLD stuff. Funny. Memorable. And persuasive to the tunes of hundreds of millions in sales. That's hard to accomplish.  

In this episode, we dig into some of the tips, tactics and secrets behind the Harmon Brother’s unrivaled success.  We dive into the following:

• 3 big mistakes most companies make when it comes to video ads
• Why humor is NOT a silver bullet 
• The inside scoop behind Poo-Pourri and haw it launched the Harmon Brothers to national prominence
• How do you land on the right “BIG idea”
• How and when to get feedback on your script and initial video edits
• How to think and create videos like the Harmon Brothers
• Plus more

Connect with Guest:

Daniel Harmon - Chief Creative Officer at Harmon Brothers

Via LinkedIn

Via Facebook

Via Instagram

Harmon Brothers - The Marketers Behind Squatty Potty, Poo~Pourri, FiberFix, Lume, and More

Via LinkedIn

Via Facebook

Via Twitter

Via Instagram

Via YouTube

Harmon Brothers University

From Poop to Gold Podcast with Harmon Brothers

“From Poop To Gold” Book by Chris Jones - Amazon

Mentioned in this episode:

Orabrush - Tongue Cleaner - Tongue Scraper - Cure Bad Breath

Poo~Pourri - Poo~Pourri, Before You go Toilet Spray

Squatty Potty - The #1 Way to #2

The Piano Guys™ Official Store - Shop Products, Music & More

YouTube Video - Creative Director: Daniel Harmon - “Over A Thousand People Came Together To Break a Record and Bring This Moving Christmas Hymn To Life”

Purple Mattress

FiberFix

Lume Deodorant - Natural Deodorants for Anywhere on Your Body

Chatbooks - High Quality Photo Books, Custom Prints & Cards

“Made to Stick” Book by Chip Heath & Dan Heath - Heath Brothers

“Building a StoryBrand” Book by Donald Miller - Amazon

A few months ago I delivered a talk at Social Media Marketing World 2019 on how to create a full funnel with YouTube ads. Feedback on the session was great so I wanted to share it here on the podcast.  

Why YouTube ads? Watch time for “which product to buy” videos on YouTube doubled this past year. Nearly 70% of shoppers say they are open to learning about products on YouTube directly from brands. In this talk, we’ll explore 3 ways to utilize YouTube ads for growth. We’ll uncover 3 proven YouTube ad formulas to put the right video in front of the right prospect at the right time. We’ll also examine the best bidding strategies and winning campaign structures to implement for success.

Mentioned in this episode:
Social Media Marketing World (SMMW) – Social Media’s Mega Conference!
Via Facebook
Via Twitter

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Is AI coming for all of our jobs?  As agencies and marketers, are we on the road to irrelevance?  Probably not fully, but our roles and our perspectives better shift and shift quickly.  Frederick Vallaeys is a brilliant marketer and programmer. He was one of Google’s first 500 employees and was on the original AdWords Quality Score team.  In this episode, we discuss how agencies and marketers of the near future should think more like pilots or doctors, or coaches (my metaphor). Pilots increasingly rely on instruments and AI to do their job.  So do doctors. But, deep expertise, strategy, and a human element are still really important. Here’s a hopeful but eyes-wide-open look at the future with Frederick Vallaeys.

• How Quality Score was yesterday’s black box and AI is today’s black box.
• Using Fred’s Two Levels of Automation – Leveraging things like AI and Machine Learning (ML) and then creating a layer of automation to keep the machines in check.  
• How is AI most impacting marketing now and how will it impact marketing in the next few years.
• What new changes to Google Ads is Fred most excited about.
• Some of Fred’s favorite Google Ad Scripts?
• Automation can be simple. AI and ML are cool but you can achieve a lot with the simple stuff

Connect With Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Optmyzr – Leading AdWords Optimization Solutions and Automated Tools
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:
“Digital Marketing in an AI World: Futureproofing Your PPC Agency” Book by Frederick Vallaeys – Amazon
Search Engine Land – New on Search Engines

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Paulina Masson is the founder of Shopkeeper and a longtime Amazon seller.  She has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to pricing products. She understands the competitive forces behind pricing decisions as well as the psychological factors.  

Ultimately you want to price in such a way to maximize total profits.  While you should consider profit per transaction, that might not be the ultimate metric to try and maximize.  Here’s what we look at:

• How to run pricing split test and why it’s so complex.
• How to price your products at launch including a free margin calculator
• How to balance competitive price factors with consumer perception and psychology
• When to end your price in 99, or 97 rather than 00.  And how a premium product or your target market might influence this.
• 3 Types of Shoppers on Amazon and how to price for each
• When and how to use coupons – when to do a % off vs. a $ off
• How price impacts conversion rates
• Plus more!

Connect with Guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Shopkeeper – Business Dashboard for Amazon Sellers
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:
Amazon Business – Amazon.com

To date, this was one of my favorite episodes to record.  Partially because I love Amazon and love hearing behind the scenes stories from people who’ve worked there.  Brad does share a couple of great stories.

Mostly I love this interview because the advice shared is pure gold.  Brad Moss has a unique perspective on business and growth. At Amazon he served as the first business lead over all of Seller Central.  To say he’s had the inside scoop on seller central would be a gross understatement.  

I met Brad at an event in Miami.  When I found out he was a former Amazonian I was eager to find out a few things – 1. A good Jeff Bezos story.  2. What is was like to work there. The stories he told when we met and the stories told on this episode did not disappoint!  

In this episode we cover some pretty powerful lessons including:

• How Amazon thinks about and deals with areas of the business that stop growing.  As you might guess, they don’t have warm and fuzzy sentiments here.
• How Amazon looks at analytics…this is truly brilliant.  Understand how Amazon decides what data to measure, and what to change to get better results.  This is part of the key to Amazon’s speed and their ability to scale successfully.
• Two mindset shifts that Amazon looks for in their employees that will help instantly make you a better entrepreneur.
• A few funny (and potentially painful stories) about how little Amazon celebrates successes.  These stories underscore the Bezos mantra that “it’s always day one.”
• Top mistakes Brad sees Amazon sellers making and how to avoid them.
• Plus more!

Connect with Guest:
Via LinkedIn
‍
Product Labs – Best Way to Sell on Amazon
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook

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Arri is a whizkid of sorts when it comes to messenger marketing and SMS marketing.  At the ripe old age of 22 he’s leading his team at Conversmart and has worked with some pretty impressive brands including Tuft & Needle, Poo-Pourri and the Beard Club just to name a few.  

I know very little about SMS marketing for eCommerce so I was super excited to have Arri on the podcast to learn how he does it.  We both spoke at Ezra Firestone’s event in Seattle a few months ago. I was so impressed by his talk that we immediately scheduled a time to record the podcast.  

Here’s a quick look at what we cover in this episode:

• Some stats around mobile usage related to text messaging that are important to note?
• How does SMS marketing compare to email marketing
• What are some of the top ways eCommerce companies should consider using SMS marketing
• How to grow SMS subscribers
• Most common SMS campaigns and tactics with some real examples
• How to combine SMS + email + messenger for mind-boggling results

Connect with the guest:
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter
Via Instagram
Via YouTube
Conversmart – Performance SMS Marketing for DTC Brands
Via LinkedIn
Via Facebook
Via Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:
Blue Ribbon – Smart Marketer
Ezra Firestone – CEO at Smart Marketer – LinkedIn
Tuft & Needle – An Exceptional Mattress at a Fair Price
Beardbrand – Beard Care, Oil, Grooming, Trimming, and Styling Products
Safe Life Defense Body Armor

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The thought of going International with your eComm business is both exciting and scary. It also seems like a HUGE undertaking. New tax codes, laws, and confusing acronyms to deal with like VAT and GST. Plus we still have the dated mindset that says we only expand internationally once we’ve maximized what we can get here in the good ole U S of A.  Kevin Sanderson will challenge your thinking and bust some myths to help you go international much sooner than you possibly thought…maybe right now. Here’s what we discuss

• What market your should target first when you go international
• What markets should you consider 2nd and 3rd when going International
• What are some non-obvious benefits to going international like lower ad costs and lower competition
• What about Australia?
• What steps to take and when to try your first international market
• Plus much more

‍

Connect with Guest:

Via Facebook

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Maximizing Ecommerce

Via Facebook

Via Twitter

Via Instagram

Via YouTube

The Maximizing Ecommerce Podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

The Amazing Seller Podcast by Scott Voelker

Jungle Scout - Amazon Product Finder & Research Tool

Helium 10 - Insanely Powerful Tools for Amazon Sellers

Unicorn Smasher - Google Chrome

VAT Registration - GOV.UK

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Episode Transcript

Brett:

Well, hello, and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today, we're talking about going international, becoming an international company. Excited about this. We've not talked about this topic specifically on the podcast before, and so with me today is an expert on this subject.

Brett:

Hey, Brett Curry here. Before we dive into today's topic, I want to talk quickly about YouTube ads. People ask me all the time, "What makes for a great YouTube ad?" It's true, the ad is the hardest part for getting YouTube to work. Now, I love the campaign structure. I love audience targeting, and I love tinkering with bids and using the smart bid algorithm. I even like budget management. I like all that behind the scenes stuff, but I've seen it time and time again where the exact same campaign structure just limps along with a mediocre video, but you get the right video with the right message that resonates with people, and that same campaign structure just takes off at scales.

Brett:

Over the last couple of years, my team and I, we've been collecting good YouTube ads. We've been watching, we've been paying attention and looking at our own clients, looking at the numbers, finding what are ads that resonate and work on YouTube. We started building this little guide, this little guide that we use internally, and we started categorizing ads and giving them fun names like The Manifesto and the UGC Mash-Up, and the Have It All.

Brett:

Started breaking down what elements in these videos make them work. I was speaking at a recent event, and I just happened to mention that this resource existed, and people clamored for it. Everyone's like, "Hey, I want to see the guide, I want to see that resource, I want to see all these successful ads." That's what we've done. We put together this resource first time ever. Going to share it with a broader audience. It's free, so check it out and get our list of winning YouTube ad formulas with lots of examples. Let this be your inspiration for your next killer YouTube ad.

Brett:

This is a free resource. We'll link to it in the show notes to this show, but you can also go to omgcommerce.com, click on Resources and then Guides, and it's the YouTube Ad Templates and Guide. Check it out, and I hope it inspires your next killer YouTube ad campaign. And now back to the show.

Brett:

I have today Kevin Sanderson with Maximizing Ecommerce. He is the chief maximizer at Maximizing Ecommerce, and so I want you to hear a little bit of his story as well before we dive into this topic. With that, Kevin, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on, man.

Kevin:

Brett, I'm so excited to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Brett:

Yep, and it's always good to connect with fellow podcasters. You run a podcast as well. You want to talk a little bit about that podcast, and then we'll get into your background and how you became a chief maximizer.

Kevin:

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I have a podcast called Maximizing Ecommerce. I bring on various subject matter experts. I look forward to... I've got a calendar appointment coming up here in the next couple of weeks with a big high profile guest that you may know, somebody from Springfield, Missouri. Very excited about that. We're going to be talking about some exciting things in the advertising world.

Brett:

Yeah, that'd be great. Looking forward to it. That guest is me just in case anybody doesn't know where I'm from.

Kevin:

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Brett:

Springfield, MO. That is me. I think most people got that, but some are like Springfield, Missouri? What is that?

Kevin:

Where is that?

Brett:

Yeah, exactly.

Kevin:

Is that where the Simpsons are?

Brett:

Which I heard, I mean, I don't know if it's Springfield, Massachusetts I think is where the Simpsons hail from, but I don't think that's ever been confirmed.

Kevin:

Maybe one day-

Brett:

We'll claim them though.

Kevin:

... we'll know for sure.

Brett:

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Great. Kevin, give a little your background. What'd you do prior to e-commerce, and then why e-commerce, and why Maximizing Ecommerce, chief maximizer, all that stuff.

Kevin:

Sure. Sure. Basically, I was climbing the corporate ladder for a while, worked for a couple of different Fortune 500 companies. My position in one of them had been eliminated. It wasn't just my position. We got taken over by another company, and my level in the new organization didn't exist. I was basically asked to walk the plank. A good friend of mine in the insurance business hooked me up with the job at his insurance agency, and they're going through rapid growth. I was working really hard, and I was very happy for them and the things that they were doing. I was just like, "Wait, if I'm going to work this hard, I'm going to work hard for my own dreams."

Kevin:

I started thinking, "What would be the avenue to do that?" I'd always been kind of a wantrepreneur, and I had discovered actually the Amazing Seller Podcast from Scott Voelker, and he was walking through very systematically, step-by-step how to get started, so the short of it is I took basically a season's worth of earnings as a high school football official, invested that into my first product-

Brett:

Awesome.

Kevin:

... and then kept reinvesting, putting money in where I could. Then about three years later, which is a little over a year ago, left my job to do all this full time. The way I look at it is had a lot of great mentors. Scott is now a friend of mine, but sometime-

Kevin:

... when I started listening to him, I-

Brett:

... for sure.

Kevin:

Yeah, he's a great guy. I-

Brett:

I knew his business partner Matt. I don't know Scott as well, but he's super smart.

Kevin:

Yeah, Scott Voelker is an awesome guy. Scott Voelker's awesome guy. He and a lot of other people have been very giving with information, kind of like what you're doing here with this podcast. You're a virtual mentor to a lot of people, and I had a lot of virtual mentors as I was coming into the business, so the way I look at it is podcast is a way to give back. If we keep giving back to other folks, eventually it'll come back to us, but the goal is to, the way I look at it is give without an expectation of receiving.

Kevin:

I enjoy coming on podcasts like this and getting to chat more with you and sharing something that hopefully your audience can take away with that will help them, maybe just keep pushing that ball just a little bit farther down the field to use a football analogy.

Brett:

That's great. Actually, I'm glad you mentioned football. I want to divert just a little bit because I did not know you were a high school ref. I want to talk about this briefly. I mentioned on the podcast before, I think a lot of people know, I am currently coaching my son's varsity basketball team. We homeschool our kids. He's on a homeschool team. We play public schools and a lot of tournaments, and we're pretty good team, but being coach is super stressful. I do like it. I'm about to retire. This is my last year  so much time.

Brett:

I'd love to say that I've always gotten along with the refs that ref our basketball games. I've gotten into it with a couple, mostly professional and cordial, but I'm just curious, do you think reffing high school sports, because I've got a connection here, and I may be way off base, but-

Brett:

... do you think that helped prepare you at all for being an entrepreneur, or do you see any correlations there or handling the pressure and the emotion, all that of sports, any correlation to business at all?

Kevin:

Yeah, there's a lot of... so there's a lot of like... you're kind of on an island there by yourself. The funny thing is about being an official, anytime a coach at the beginning of the game says, "I'm easy to deal with, this is going to be a great game," I know-

Brett:

It's not.

Kevin:

I know pretty much this is going to be a train wreck because it never quite works that way because everyone's emotions get in the way.

Brett:

Really? Really?

Kevin:

Oh, we keep the side lane clear. We... Oh, then their side land would be a mass and... It was always a lot of fun. I did it for 10 seasons. I actually didn't do it this past fall, but it's definitely does prepare you because you're thinking on your feet. Everybody thinks it's really easy when they're watching Mike Pereira or whoever it was that's the former NFL head of officiating comes in and analyzes the play, and you see it in slow motion. When you're trying decide-

Brett:

From lots of different angles, and you got all kinds of time, and there's no pressure on you, you're.

Kevin:

Oh, yeah, it's like, they're like, "Oh, yeah. I agree with that," or, "I don't agree because my team, it would go against my team," so you're the impartial person who's trying to decide "is this past interference, is that holding?" The thing of it is... I'm not as familiar with basketball, but I know there's a lot of similarities, that there's the rule book and then there's a case book.

Brett:

Yes, yes.

Kevin:

The case book is more like how you apply, and it gives you situations similar to like how a certain rule is because they don't want you just calling everything-

Brett:

Exactly.

Kevin:

... verbatim the-

Brett:

Exactly.

Kevin:

... rule because real life is gray.

Brett:

It is. It is.

Kevin:

Brett:

There's so much gray, and I love that. A couple thoughts that I had, and I think there's some correlations with coaching as well. Coaches and refs can get into it, but there's some similarities there. You're on a bit of an island as a coach as well. Things go well as the players, things go poorly as the coach. There's so much emotion in that. I mean, which fine. That's the way it probably should be, but there's so much emotion wrapped up into it too, and parents get all upset and stuff like this.

Brett:

I think the tie in the business for me is if you can learn to silence or suppress some of the emotional response and just look at things objectively... You can never get 100%, but if you could just kind of objectively look at, "No, I think this was holding," or, "No, I think this is the way to take my business," lots of fears, lots of chatter, lots of whatever, but no, looking at this objectively, this was the way to take the business. Anyway, I think that's cool. I think we would have been buds if I was the coach and you were the ref. I think we would've gotten along.

Kevin:

Definitely.

Brett:

I mean, I may have told you a time or two when you sucked, but-

Kevin:

Like, "You missed the holding call," or, "Wait, why would you call-"

Brett:

Exactly.

Kevin:

"... that? You called more on our side than their side."

Brett:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did-

Kevin:

it's like-

Brett:

I did have a situation recently where there was a foul call in one of my players, and the ref was like... I said, "You just got to explain this to me. How did he foul on this?" He's like, "Well, he had both hands on him." I said, "Well, he didn't actually have any hands on him. He had his hands out." Anyway, it was fun stuff like that. Anyway, that was a little bit of a sidetrack-

Kevin:

We could go down a whole-

Brett:

... on just-

Kevin:

... rabbit hole on that one.

Brett:

We totally could. Let's talk about going international. I want to look at a few areas, and we'll dive into some specific I know you're an expert in this arena, but I think looking at the when and why and where of going international. Maybe let's talk about those first two first, the why and the when. What advice would you give people, because this is the strategic part of it, and then we'll get into some more tactical stuff too, but why international... other than just make more money, but why international and when?

Kevin:

Yeah, great question. As far as the why, and if you think about it, you've got a business, and you're constantly trying to get eyeballs on your offers, whether it be you're using paid ads or if you're going on Amazon or off Amazon or a combination of both, whatever it is you're trying to do. The more people you can get to it, the better. The nice thing about selling internationally is now you've got new eyeballs that you wouldn't have gotten the chance to get otherwise.

Kevin:

Think of it this way. If you're in Canada, and you could buy something that's Prime is going to be delivered in a day or two to your house, maybe sometimes two or three days, because bigger country and not as many warehouses, but either way, if you can buy it competitively priced in your currency, and it gets there quickly, you're going to do it, and you've been trained to do that by going into amazon.ca. It's like you're going to start doing that.

Kevin:

Now, all of a sudden, just like we've trained our customers, or Amazon, I should say, has trained their customers to buy Prime stuff in the US, same thing in Canada, same thing in Europe, and the European marketplace is in pretty much all over the globe. It's like leaving money on the table if you're not going internationally because then that money you could make from selling your goods faster... so let's say you're ordering, let's say a thousand units at a time. Maybe if you're getting 10% of your sales in the US, in Canada, you're selling 10% faster essential, and so you can reinvest that money back into it. Maybe you were looking to hire somebody to run your paid ads or you wanted to launch a new product or hire a virtual assistant or whatever you wanted to do to invest back into your business-

Brett:

And more volume-

Kevin:

... you can do that.

Brett:

... to get better terms with your suppliers and things like that, maybe change the-

Kevin:

Absolutely.

Brett:

... cost economics of your business.

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean, there's so many things you could do with that money. It also adds a little bit of an insurance policy on your Amazon listing because a lot more competition comes in more quickly and to Amazon in the US than goes into Canada or UK. I mean, there's still competition, but you don't see the same players.

Brett:

Yep. Yep. We'll underscore this in a little bit because I know this was one of the things that intrigued me about the topic and why I wanted to have you speak on it is you mentioned leaving money on the table. A lot of people think there's a ton of work involved, but it's not as simple as copy and paste, but you already got your listings built. You can make them international, we'll talk about how to do that in a minute, and instantly start getting more sales. Let's talk about the ease and just a minute. What about the question of when. When should I do this? I'm just starting in the US or I'm at a million or two a year. Do you have any advice or any thoughts around when we look to go international?

Kevin:

Yes. I think oftentimes people push it out, I think, farther than they necessarily need to. I decided I was going to go fairly early on because I was testing a bunch of things because when I first started, I had like one product, and I was starting to add ons, more products. I was trying eBay. I was trying my own Shopify store. I was-

Brett:

When you say early, like first year, second year?

Kevin:

For me, it was my first year.

Brett:

Nice. Okay.

Kevin:

It was... I had... Let's see. I started in February of '16 was when I first start getting sales in my first product, and it was probably around September that I started getting sales in Canada. I was trying a bunch of different things at the same time because when I was still fairly new, I had time because I didn't have as many products and as much sales, so I had time to try different things. That's what I got the most traction on early on was going international, so then I took what I learned in Canada and then went into Europe. Europe's a little more complicated because that works differently than it does... Sales tax in Canada's pretty similar to the US except it's, really, for the most part, just the federal government you're dealing with there.

Brett:

Nice.

Kevin:

Yeah, which makes it much simpler. I basically had one product and three or four... I don't remember the exact number. I had a bunch I was working on putting in the pipeline at the time that I went into Canada. The nice thing was it really bumped up my holiday sales because, just like in the US, we're very consumer-driven, we're buying lots of stuff with the holidays. Same thing in Canada and, really, Europe too.

Brett:

When you first launched, it was in your first year, so total sales are still growing, you're still a new company at that point, but into that second year and beyond, what percentage of your sales became international?

Kevin:

Yeah, so between Canada and Europe, it's generally ranged in the 25 to 35% depending-

Brett:

Great.

Kevin:

... on the year.

Brett:

That's great.

Kevin:

Last year, it was over 30% of my sales-

Brett:

That's a huge bump. That's a massive bump just by taking the same products, same listings, making them available in other places. We'll talk about some specifics in a minute. Your advice is go early, and if you're already seeing success with products, now's the time probably.

Kevin:

Yeah. The nice thing is oftentimes people think like, "Oh, I need to get a whole new minimum order quantity," so what you could do just to take a step back is you can just go on amazon.ca or amazon.co., .uk. North America and Europe, this works. Pacific, like Japan, this doesn't work. But you could take Jungle Scout or whatever, Helium 10 or Unicorn Smasher, whatever you like to use and see, for the most part, those tools work, and you can see approximate demand. As long as there's some demand, it's worth trying. Sometimes people will look and say, "Oh, well, it's not the same sales as the US, so it's not worth a whole new order." Well don't order whole new stuff just for that. Take small portions of your existing order and test it out, and if you run out, oh, well. Restock the next time.

Brett:

Yep. Yep. Got it. That makes a ton of sense. You mentioned Canada and Europe. Are those the first two places to try and in that order for most people?

Kevin:

Yes. I would say Canada, then the UK, just to be more specific, although UK is now technically not part of the European Union, but as we're recording this, the plan seems to be that all the trade arrangements are going to stay for the most part, pretty much the same, at least through the end of 2020.

Kevin:

Now, that could change, so anything we say here, take with a little bit of grain of salt, but for the most part in Europe, what you can do to get started is to basically take your listings, put them in the UK, and then what you could do is then let's say you wanted to go to Germany, get your listings translated, go into Germany, and you can actually take your inventory from the UK, and they'll ship it to German customers, and you would just pay that-

Brett:

So then you're still just sending to the fulfillment centers in the UK, and that's-

Kevin:

Exactly.

Brett:

... supplying both UK and Germany.

Kevin:

Yes. Now, one of the things Amazon really wants sellers to do, and this is something I strongly suggest people think twice about, is to do what's called the Pan-European fulfillment program. What that means is... Think of it this way. If let's say you send inventory into Charlotte or California or wherever. Amazon's going to take your inventory, move it to wherever they feel like because they can get it closer to the customer. That's what they do in the US, and it makes really no difference. In Europe, it gets more complicated with now all of a sudden you're supposed to register for VAT in different countries. You have to register for VAT in like seven different countries if you do the Pan-European fulfillment program, so always start with just UK. Don't turn on Pan-EU-

Brett:

Yep. Yep. Yep. Makes sense.

Kevin:

... unless you want to pay like seven, eight grand for VAT compliance.

Brett:

Got it. Got it. Totally makes sense. Let's talk Canada first. Canada's a place, that's where, typically where we would go first. English speaking, very similar to the US in a lot of ways. Talk about what does that process like. You want to do a few of the details without going line by line on any documents obviously, but how do we get started selling in Canada, and why is that easier than we might think, or how-

Kevin:

One of the things... Yeah, great question. One of the things I like about Canada is this just north of the border, so longterm, you could theoretically, and people do this where maybe you tell your factory take a certain portion, send some of it into Canada, send some of it into the US once you have data of what you need, but you can take... as long as you have some inventory on hand that's not in Amazon's warehouse in the US, let's say, you can take some of your existing inventory, ship it into a Canadian fulfillment center, and turn on your listings in Canada. To do that, what you got to do first is register with Canadian government basically for their sales tax called GST/HST, as well as get what's called a nonresident importer status, so-

Brett:

Do you recommend getting help doing that? I mean, do you need an accountant, do you need an attorney? Is this something that people can just do on their own pretty easily?

Kevin:

You could theoretically do it on your own. I have a service where I just do everything for people-

Brett:

Awesome.

Kevin:

... but it's 100% something you could do on your own too.

Brett:

Cool. Cool. Okay. Great. Great. Let's keep walking through that a little bit.

Kevin:

All right, cool. You get registered. I think usually takes four to six weeks to get registered. UPS is probably one of the best ones to use to ship your goods. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't want to get involved in going across the border, so you're on your own. Now, one little tip I have for people, it could take [crosstalk 00:21:04]-

Brett:

Well, so what does that mean? That means you've got to do self-fulfilled Prime at that point or-

Kevin:

Let's say you're sending something into an Amazon Fulfillment Center. Let's say it's in.

Brett:

Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. You're just getting stuff into the fulfillment centers in from-

Kevin:

Exactly.

Brett:

... from the US. Got it.

Kevin:

Exactly, because I think the best way to do it is to have inventory in the country because-

Brett:

Right. Totally make sense.

Kevin:

... you're going to have the best experience with a customer and get the most sales as a result. Basically, you have to create your own shipment into the country as opposed to in the US. Amazon gives you really good rates. If you're using UPS, you can use promo code EASY, E-A-S-Y, or promo code FAST, F-A-S-T. Both of them seem to work, and it's about 40% off.

Brett:

Cool.

Kevin:

You can reach out to UPS and also have them set up a brokerage account for you because you have to pay fees when you go across the border.

Brett:

Nice. Got it. Okay. You get the product there, and then... So really, any additional paperwork that's required, and then once we kind of have that wrapped up, let's talk about what we're doing with our list things to kind of make them friendly for the Canadian market.

Kevin:

Yeah. As far as the Canadian market from... Here's the thing I'll say. I can't find the exact number, but I've looked this up. It's anywhere, estimates are between 75 and 90% of Canadians live within a hundred miles of the US border, so the words they use are pretty much the same as the words we use. I mean, it's very, very similar. Europe, it starts getting a lot different, or sometimes even in the UK, it's almost like you're speaking a foreign language with some of the words in some ways.

Kevin:

But at least in Canada, it's pretty similar. You can pretty much rest assure that what you're selling, for the most part... you may have to make some slight tweaks. You can always look at your competitors and see what they're doing as far as are they converting things to milliliters or whatever the case is, so little things like that you could take a look at. But for the most part, it's pretty much what you have in the US, you could just... it's a dropdown, and people may not even realize that dropdown exists, but you'd probably see your store name and a little flag with like the US flag. You just switch that down to Canada, and then now you go to manage inventory, and you can add in your list options.

Brett:

Awesome. That's awesome.

Kevin:

Real simple.

Brett:

Yep. Cool. Very good. Canada first, then the UK, and then from the UK, you can target other European countries.

Kevin:

Yes.

Brett:

You mentioned Germany. Is Germany usually the second country after the UK that you target in Europe, or does it depend?

Kevin:

Yes. People, for the most part, have pretty consistent good results in Germany. Italy can be hit or miss. Spain and France, for most people, tend to be pretty slow. It's one of those things that... Germany is a pretty good one. For a lot of people, they actually do better in Germany than they do in the UK.

Brett:

Very interesting. Okay, cool. Then what about Australia, another English speaking country. Are you recommending people look at that, or where would that be on the roadmap typically?

Kevin:

Great question because you would think Australia, being a English speaking country, would be a really good one to go into. One of the things about Australia, it's one of the newest marketplaces, and so there was a statistic that between [crosstalk 00:24:30].

Brett:

It's one of Amazon's newest marketplaces?

Kevin:

Yes. One of Amazon's newest marketplaces. They were noticing that, like let's say in the UK and the US, they were getting something like $500 million a year in sales of Australians buying and having products shipped, so they said, "Oh, let's create a marketplace there. There's opportunity there." The challenge is the population's pretty small there. Right now, behaviorally, they're very used to buying on eBay. Last I looked, eBay sales were something like six times higher in Australia than they are Amazon sales in Australia so-

Brett:

Interesting.

Kevin:

Yeah. In fact, I remember it was right before the holidays, a friend of mine was saying, "Hey, should I go into Australia?" and I said, "Well, I'm warning you, it's pretty slow," and he said, "Well, how much have you done in sales the last week?" At the time it was like I made one sale in Australia previously. He said, "Okay, for comparison, how much have you done in Canada?" I had done, let's say it was like 129 sales during the same time period, so it's definitely much slower in Australia-

Brett:

Got it.

Kevin:

... but if you mature to that point, I wouldn't say that's a starter one, but at least it gets your foothold in there because down-

Brett:

Opening up-

Kevin:

... the road-

Brett:

... you'd think you would... Yeah. I mean, if Amazon is one-sixth the size of eBay sales and in Australia, Amazon's going to figure things out, and likely, that's going to get more to a point of parity, or eventually Amazon might win. That'd be my guess. But it makes total sense that's not your first play, but maybe third, fourth, fifth, something like that. You look at it down the road. Let's talk about some other benefits. I know something you mentioned offline, one benefit of looking at Canada is ads are typically cheaper, right? Do you find-

Kevin:

Oh, yeah.

Brett:

Do you find that consistent in some of these other markets, and then aside from ads being cheaper, any other of these benefits that people might not be thinking about immediately?

Kevin:

Yeah. One of the things I would say is another benefit is it's lower maintenance. Sometimes people think like, "Oh, I'm going to have to spend... if I'm spending, let's say, 10 hours a week in my Amazon US, I'm going to have to spend another 10 hours a week on Canada or UK or whatever." Well, I tend to find that that's not the case.

Brett:

Nice. Nice.

Kevin:

One, there's not as much competition, so there's not as much things changing ongoing. Then if you're getting, let's say, 10% of the sales, you probably also have 10% of the impressions, 10% of the clicks, and so you could probably get away with sometimes maybe only checking it once every couple of months or something like that once you get up and going, I mean, once you got it solidified.

Brett:

Less time, often cheaper, lots of economics. That makes sense. It's really..

Kevin:

Yeah. Another benefit that I would say is in Canada that's not in Europe is in Europe the selling price includes sales tax, their VAT, and that can be kind of a challenge of trying to manage your margins, whereas in Canada, it's added onto the selling price just like it is here. One of the other interesting things is with that is you also can get away typically with it adding a little extra to your price relative to the conversion rate because if you look at Canada, you got Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, all these big expensive cities that are basically the same as like here in the US, like the cost of living would be in like San Francisco or New York. Then if you don't live in those major cities, you might live in the boondocks, and maybe there's a general store an hour away from you that's like the size of the 7/11. This is what people have described to me. You're willing to pay just a little extra to have Amazon just bring stuff to your door. It's like a godsend-

Brett:

Totally makes sense.

Kevin:

... to those people.

Brett:

Totally makes sense. Yep. Awesome. This has been fantastic. I want to connect people to you and some more resources and some of the things as they want to dive deeper, but as we wrap up, what are some of the mistakes you see people make? Someone decides to go international, what are some of the mistakes, pitfalls, issues, things like that that people need to be aware of.

Kevin:

Yes. What I would say is check first to see if there's some sales for similar products to yours. Sometimes, people worry about hijackers. There's a problem oftentimes have what's called gray listings in other countries where people will take, like bots will take like a million listings in the US and add them to Canada. They're usually like two, three times with the price should be, and people worry like, "Oh, my gosh, I got to kick these hijackers off my listing." Don't even worry about them. They're not going to get the buy box. All they're going to do is, worst case scenario, if they do get the buy box and get a sale, they're just going to drop ship off of you, off of your US listing, so nothing to worry about there.

Kevin:

Then also too, just make sure you're doing at least your good, honest, try to be tax-compliant. Oftentimes freight forwarders will do a good job of getting people registered to at least be able to get their stuff across the border, but they oftentimes, they don't register people for the sales tax, and so you could end up having the Canadian government come to you and say, "You owe us money," and you didn't collect it, so now you don't have it for them.

Kevin:

At the flip side too, you're actually going to be paying on top of your fulfillment fees a sales tax as well as when you go across the border, on the declared value, you're going to pay their GST, their sales tax in Canada. Those two items would subtract from what you collected from customers, so in essence, your customers are paying that for you.

Brett:

Got it.

Kevin:

But only if you're registered for sales tax and Amazon's collecting it.

Brett:

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Fantastic. Couple of scenarios. One, somebody says, "Hey, I'd like to give this a go on my own, but I want more resources. Kevin hooked me up with some resources." Let's talk about that, and then talk about, for a lot of the people, and I would fall into this category where we say, "I would just rather have someone like Kevin do this for me," talk about that as well.

Kevin:

Sure, sure, sure. If you go to maximizingecommerce.com/brett, I do have a checklist that I put together. It walks you through step by step. I call it a checklist, but I don't know, it's like 14 pages long. It has resources and everything, sort of a mini guide.

Brett:

I'll link to it in the show notes as well, but it's maximizingecommerce.com/brett.

Kevin:

Yes. As far as if you're looking for someone to do this all for you, reach out to me if you wanted to kevin@maximizingecommerce.com and be more than happy to do a free 30-minute consultation to see if it makes sense for them; otherwise, you can use the checklist, and I'd love to hear about someone's success from using it so if anyone-

Brett:

Exactly.

Kevin:

... downloads it and starts getting good numbers, please let me know because I love adding success stories.

Brett:

Yep. That's awesome. Kevin Sanderson, ladies and gentlemen. Kevin, man, thanks for coming on. Thanks for educating us. Thanks for educating me because I didn't know much about this topic. Thanks for helping us go international. It's exciting.

Kevin:

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Brett:

Absolutely. Check it out. Go to maximizingecommerce.com. I'll link to it all in the show notes. As always, we'd love to hear from you, what show ideas do you have, what topics should we cover, what'd you like to see more of or less of. We'd also love that review on iTunes if you feel so inclined. With that, until next time, thank you for listening.

Kiri Masters is the founder & CEO of Bobsled Marketing and marketplace institute and host of ECommerce BrainTrust. Author of Amazon Expansion Plan and new book Amazon for CMOs.  We talk Amazon a lot on this podcast.  I wanted to have Kiri on to discuss her philosophy both in how to expand and how to manage growth.  We discuss some really interesting topics including:

• What CMOs of big brands know about Amazon that we don’t
• Who you need on your Amazon team
• How to assemble your own all-star Amazon team?
• How to take advantage of the full Amazon stack rather than just focusing on one area.
• Plus more!

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The Marketplace Institute – The First Holistic Amazon Capability Development Platform for Brands and Agencies
eCommerce BrainTrust
The Amazon Expansion Plan
Amazon For CMOs

Mentioned in this episode:
The Llama Commerce Show – Demystifying eCommerce Into Actionable, Digestible Bites

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