AMPS, Tariffs and What’s New

The Amazon marketplace growth program, campaign manager, tariffs and tips all coming up in this episode of the Amazon Seller Podcast.

Nathan: (00:27)

As we get into this episode, I want to tell you about a super cool deal we have going on right now. When you go to amazing freedom.com/magic and then to our magic listing service, you can get a Complete Done-For-You Listing.  That includes 7 enhanced main images, complete listing copy with keyword research for your title, your bullets and your description.  And you get your full enhanced brand content (EBC), images, and copy. Okay, seriously, it’s a Complete Done-For-You package and we just lowered it to an all-time low amazing price.

What if I am not brand registered yet?

If you aren’t quite brand registered yet and can’t take advantage of EBC right now, don’t worry. We will actually give you both your normal HTML formatted and optimized description that you can use right away.  And you’re also going to get your enhanced brand content, images, and copies.   So as soon as you get brand registered, you can go live right away with your EBC material.

How awesome is that? So head over to amazing freedom.com/magic and check out the magic listing service.  And our amazing new all-time low prices to make your listing look great and optimized for conversion.

(02:39) Liran shares what he’s been up to in his business:

Sure. So have kind of two new exciting things I’ve been working on. One is a, a new brand. This is a product I, I’ve probably spoken about here before that I found at the Canton Fair in, April. it’s taken a little bit of time to get off the ground because the supplier had some extra inventory. So they just sent us like 300 units by air, for free just to put up on Amazon and kind of test. And we put that up on actually we had like, five or six variations and like three or four already sold out. And, that was just with PPC. We didn’t really do a launch.

Now we’re giving them design for packaging and labels, etc., And putting in a bigger order Q4.  This is in the toy niche.

Liran: (03:31)

So that’s really exciting, especially seeing that, I think you have a really good sign of a successful product when you just put something up and just run some, PPC to it. Like we’re only doing $20 a day budget. And products were selling without even any reviews. So that was really positive sign in our, just finished kind of working on design and packaging. And placing a bigger order.

I’m also working on another brand that, is doing some, kind of exciting things.  Off Amazon with subscriptions, and getting customers on a monthly or three-month subscription for Q4. The product sets vary. Cool too, to kind of see that model, and as well as, doing things on Amazon. So with that brand, I’m starting to do more on Amazon marketing too. So we’re implementing video in search, which we’ll talk a little bit more about, with some, PPC updates.

(07:43)Andy shares what he’s been up to in his business:

Yeah, definitely a lot more nuts and bolts of being in the warehouse. Probably a little more than I would like.  But, it’s because we’ve had a number of containers come in.  And we’re working with the products before we actually send them to the customers.

So, if you follow the podcasts at all, you know, that over the last four and a half years I built up two brands. And about six months ago, I want to say, I, I sold one of those brands to a partner that I was working on it with. So that was pretty cool. It wasn’t life-changing money, but, it definitely, it helps, the bank account.   Basically, I let him pay me in three lump sums. So received the first one and the second one, we’ll be coming in I believe like in September.

Andy: (08:34)

So, that’s always exciting to know that the work that I’ve put in on that brand.  A little over three and a half years has definitely paid off.  You know, by being able to sell that to him. And then my other brand, which is one of the ones I first started with.  Unfortunately, I didn’t give it a lot of love and the attention that I should have when I was first starting now. And some of that is because I didn’t really understand necessarily what I was doing, building a brand.

However, it’s still been very strong and powerful, sales on Amazon and I’m just actually kind of coming back to it, adding a few, other accents to kind of beef it up.

And then, you know, the brand that, that spend a lot of time with. Obviously. Nate is the one that we’re working on together, so super excited about that. I think we have four containers that are going to be landing like toward the end of August. So we’re going to be really busy working in the warehouse. Then and getting those shipped out to customers.

New Tariffs Update

(11:28) Liran breaks down the latest Tariff laws from this week’s latest war with China:

So, President Trump actually just announced, real recently, right, that there’s going to be basically tariffs on pretty much every product coming from China.  Instead of the original, what was it, 250 to $300 billion that 25%.  now 10% on, pretty much everything else. But I think there’s some confusion that people are having with that 10%. So Leon, can you break down what exactly that means? Because I think some people are like combining the percentages and thinking that it’s going up to more than 25%. So what does that mean exactly?

So somebody asked me yesterday, so does that mean I’m not willing to pay 35% tariff on my product? And the answer is no. There was still, I think 300 billion worth of products that we’re not subject to tariffs. And so, the president decided to hit those products with 10%.  Meaning the products that already have 25% are not getting any additional tariffs…

(16:03) Nathan shares what affect this will have on current shipments already en route to the US.

So assuming that it does go into effect on September 1st.  If no kind of agreement can happen before then though.  The way that it worked, last time on the 25% increase was that as long as the container was shipped prior to the date that it went into effect, the tariffs would not be imposed. So, if you do have a shipment that’s being made now, and if you’re able to get it before September 1st. I think because I had a container on the boat last time before the 25% went into effect.  There was no tariff on it. So, that’s something to be aware of.

Sponsored Display Beta – Campaign Manager

& Video In Search (VIS) Features

Nathan: (17:03) an update that, within campaign manager is something that has been, available to a limited number of people for a while. I think that sponsored display Beta is the way that it reads within Campaign Manager.  It seems like more and more people are now having access to it in their account. So if you go to campaign manager, go to “create new campaign”, you might see this new, type of ad, you can create, break that down.

(19:33) Liran shares the new Video In Search self-service feature:

These are video ads that you’ll see on mobile. This initially came out on iOS only. Then it also rolled out to android devices. And these are ads that you’ll see when you’re looking at the Amazon app.  If you scroll on, you know, and just some keyword searches you’ll see these ads.  It used to be, I think that you were limited maybe to the length of the video around 15 seconds.

Now, I asked Amazon, there’s no limit, but I think you want to probably keep it to definitely less than a minute, probably a 30-second video. One thing I’d be aware of is by default the sound is off. So if you have anybody talking or any voice or anything on it, I would have maybe some captions for example on there, just like you see with like Facebook ads or things like that. So something to be aware of in the video. I would make it like a quick snippet.

A Few Tips About Protecting Your Mold in Chinese Factories

(23:06) Visit www.steveandliran.com to Sign-Up for our Upcoming trip to China for Fall 2019

Liran: We did a webinar yesterday where, Steve Simonson shared, seven mistakes when it comes to international sourcing, whether it’s from China or anywhere else. There’s a lot of value on this.    One tip I took away from it was around the mold.  Which is if you’re creating a mold for a product in China, you don’t want the factory to be able to use that mold for other people.  Especially if you’re creating an agreement with them where you’re paying for the mold and you own the mold.

The problem is that the mold is in the hands of your Chinese factory.  And you should never trust your Chinese factory implicitly.  That’s just how business is done in China. You don’t want to necessarily trust, you want to have things in writing and you want to have that, you own that mold.

(23:54) Liran gives tips for how to protect product molds that are in China.

So what are some steps you can take to protect that mold? The first step and the tip that I’ve done before is you can imprint your brand name on the mold so somebody else can’t use it. Otherwise, they’ll have your brand name on their product.  A second step that you could take, and sometimes you can’t imprint a brand name on the mold because it will create a line on the mold with certain things like glass for example. So another thing you could do is you can actually store that actual mold off-site, off the factory site. I’m kind of thinking like, you know, this mold that you paid, you know, 5,000, ten thousand twenty thousand dollars for is like money, right? And so if you have cash, you’re going to keep that cash in a safe deposit box, right?

Liran: (24:37)
You’re not going to let anybody access that cash. And that’s kinda how I think about this mold. So a tip that Steve shared was that you can actually have this mold stored offsite of the factory.  So they cannot access it and you only bring that mold back to the factory when you’re in production.  It’s another way to kind of protect your mold from being used by other people.  And your competitors coming up with the same sort of design idea product that you’re utilizing.

China Trip October, 2019

We’ll be in Hong Kong, we’ll be in Shanghai, sourcing products. we’ll show you some cool things. We’re going to take you to an underground black market, in Shanghai to where you can find some black market goods. I’m not encouraging you to go buy fake Gucci shirts.  But if you want to, they will be there.  It’s a very interesting place to just walk down it’s literally like a mall.   And you’ll walk into a store and you’ll see a wall full of new balance sneakers.  Like you’re walking into a Footlocker except for none of them are real. So kind of crazy.

But you’ll see,  we’ll show you some fun things like that as well as an opportunity to go source product, mastermind network. and we’re excited about that. So that’s Steve and leon.com for more info on or trying to trust.

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