Episode 43

How an Expert Optimizes Amazon Presence: Her Number One Tip Is Free

Hosted by:
  • Melissa Traverse
    Melissa Traverse
    Director of Community • BevNET
Lorena Arathoon and her team at Tasu Chips have launched their brand on Amazon and are looking to refine their strategy. Betsy McGinn, an Amazon guru and e-commerce strategist, joins Community Call to provide Lorena with ideas that will steadily grow sales.  Find out how to create the perfect listing, the advertising that's worth investing in, and what you should avoid at all costs on the platform.  Find Betsy's companion deck shared on this episode in our Slack Community, join us: https://slack.bevnet.com/sign-up 

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Episode Transcript

Note: Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies and spelling errors.

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Welcome to the Community Call Podcast.

I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH.

If you're enjoying the show, please follow and review us on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice.

When you listen to this episode, I will hopefully be traversing Acadian National Park and Deer Island, Maine, looking for the best snacks to eat along the way, which I'll certainly tell you all about when I get back.

For now, I'd like to present this episode of Community Call where we flip the script once again to help Lorena Arathoon and her team at Tasu Chips navigate and optimize their Amazon presence with the help of Betsy McGinn, Amazon guru and e-comm strategist.

Betsy shares her most important tips and tricks for working with this e-comm giant from how to tweak your listing for success, pricing strategies, and how to make data-driven decisions on Amazon that help you continue to improve your performance.

There is also a companion presentation to the community call that Betsy provided, which you can find in our Slack Community at slack.bevnet.com.

You'll find it in the general discussion channel.

Please enjoy.

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It's where food and beverage professionals come together to support each other.

Stay connected, find answers to your questions and learn about upcoming industry events.

Join at slack.bevnet.com.

Today on Community Call, we are going to be talking about selling on Amazon.

Our guests are Lorena Arathoon, CEO and co-founder of Snackery, maker of Tasu Chips, and Betsy McGinn, Amazon Guru and e-comm strategist.

We'll be talking through the opportunities and challenges brands need to consider while strategizing their Amazon presence, which is exactly what Lorena is focused on right now.

So thank you both so much for joining us, Lorena and Betsy.

I'm so excited to get into this topic.

Lorena, why don't we start with you?

Could you familiarize us first with Tasu Chips?

I know you have a unique way of turning fruit into a chip and they are absolutely delicious.

So please, why don't you tell our audience a little bit about Tasu Chips?

Sure, thank you, Melissa, for having me here.

I'm very excited.

So Tasu is their crunchy flavor packed chips that are made with 100% fruit and nothing added.

Our one ounce bags can be enjoyed as a snack on its own, as a topping or to dip.

A celiac consumer, for example, or someone who's on a diet, they'll be able to enjoy Tasu without feeling like they're missing out.

And a kid who otherwise won't eat fruit gets to have their serving of fruit in a very fun way.

They're made with one ingredient.

And as you mentioned, we have a very specific way of drying the fruit.

So many of you might be familiar with dried fruit.

They're usually dried pieces of fruit.

What we do is we blend the fruit before we dry it.

And so we end up with a very crunchy chip that is cut out in a square form.

And consumers, when they're enjoying it, feel like they're eating a regular chip, but it's just fruit.

And can you tell us a little bit about your Amazon strategy so far?

Sure, so we launched in the US recently on Amazon, but we are no stranger to having launched in other countries.

So we have launched in Central America in the past.

We've been in business for eight years, but Amazon looks very different than launching in other markets.

We usually launch in the retail channel.

So what we're doing for a US launch is we have two initial phases.

So phase one includes launching on Amazon.

And direct to consumer through our own website.

Both of these are already up and running since last April.

And it is our belief that really getting to know the consumer, the products, usage, locations, the flavor preferences, the pricing sensitivity through our online sales is gonna give us a good starting point before we move on to the next phase, which is getting into retail.

And we plan on starting in the natural channel, finally making it into mainstream stores.

And we're being patient before we go into this more cash intensive channel.

And as I mentioned before, we wanna make sure that we get that data right from our Amazon launch, especially before we move into retail.

And one last thing, Tasu Chips, you're based in Guatemala.

All of your manufacturing is there, cause you mentioned launching in other markets, correct?

Yeah, so we are based in Guatemala, which is where I'm from right now.

We make them right here, where fruit grows pretty much year round.

We capture it very fresh from the source.

And yeah, we ship it to the US for everyone over there to enjoy.

Betsy, I would love an introduction from you to hear a little bit about what your experience has been.

You ask anybody in this industry who they should find for an Amazon expert and all fingers point to you.

So please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, thank you for the kind words.

I have been working in e-commerce for about 18 years now, which is long before it was really a thing.

I worked for Seventh Generation, which is one of the largest non-toxic cleaning product, chlorine-free baby diaper brands.

And we had a huge Amazon business that I built with my team over the course of several years.

And then in 2014, I started my own business in order to help brands be successful on Amazon.

So much of the work that makes you successful is that work you do before you even launch around the points that we're going to talk about a little bit, Melissa, like the right product and the right price and promotion.

And all of those pieces that people tend to miss, brands tend to miss, because we get lulled into this idea that it's so easy to shop on Amazon that it's also easy to sell on Amazon.

And probably Lorena can tell you that is not the case.

And so that is how I like to help brands is from a brand's perspective.

How can you be healthy and profitable and win on Amazon?

Helping brands is certainly something you do so well and what we're here to do today.

So we're using Tasu Chips almost as a live case study to sort of help everybody understand what a brand's best approach might be, especially in the emerging phase.

Betsy, what do you think about how Lorena's team has approached Amazon so far?

Are there any sort of opening thoughts that you might have about what's been done so far before we get into the nitty gritty of how brands should approach this?

You're thinking all of the right things.

You've done a good job setting up your content, which is really the foundation for successful Amazon business.

You thought through having variety packs and also full count cases as your primary single flavor item.

So I think you've done a lot of the right things and you're still waiting to do some.

As we know, you haven't really launched into advertising or social media yet, and those are gonna be really important.

But one of the things that I find is there's always places that you can improve in one way or another.

And I'd like to offer some of those up if that's the next best step to go in.

Please take it away.

I know this is typically just an audio podcast, but I'll send this to you, Lorena.

I wanted to put together a couple of slides to talk about some of these specific topics.

I'm gonna share my screen real quick and just talk about what are those key components that you need to get right as you're launching.

And there are six that I identify, and I've added a seventh on.

So platform, really understanding the three different ways of selling on Amazon.

And just for the record, the way you're selling through FBA is I believe the best way for brands because you have so much more control.

There's tons of programs that you can participate in.

Having the right product, not just for profitability, but also for the consumer.

I always like to say a consumer's probably not going to buy 12 boxes of cereal.

One box is too small, but maybe two or three is the right amount.

And the same is true with snacks.

The way you have yours configured makes a lot of sense.

Then just getting the price right.

And that doesn't mean having the lowest price.

Understanding your profitability because you don't want to have a business that is selling a lot, but you're not making any money.

And placement, which is content in my world.

Content is the foundation of your business.

And it really is one of those first things that I work with clients on to make sure they get it right.

And last but not least is promotion.

Because without promotion online, you really don't have an Amazon business, unfortunately.

The seventh one that I like to mention is people.

Like who is going to manage this business?

And I know that you are working with some people to help you.

And so I want everybody to think about what that looks like for them.

Are you going to do it internally?

Are you going to use some help?

Are you going to use an agency?

Whatever that might be, it's important to recognize that it's going to take a bit of effort and time.

One of the biggest advantages I see of getting help from an experienced Amazon agency or independent contractor is they can get a problem resolved in a couple hours, or even if it's a really extensive one in a day where it might take you weeks, right?

Just because they know the back end so well, they know the tricks of the trade.

So having said that, I wanted to jump first into your content.

I think that, as I said, it's a really good starting point.

What are the most important things about your Amazon business?

And I'm going to go right to content.

The most important content you have is your basic content.

And a lot of brands get caught up in this idea that they want to have that really sexy brand store, that A plus content is really important.

But the only thing that indexes in search is your basic content.

So having the right title, having your five bullet points optimized for not just SEO, but what are your points of difference?

What are your selling points of difference?

And I know that you have some because of the uniqueness of your product.

And just having a great carousel of pictures.

And so what does that look like?

In this case, I'm using one of my former clients, Vive Organics, and you can see that they really paid attention to their title.

78% of product searches on Amazon do not start with a brand name.

So having characteristics that are important to the consumer are really important.

How do people search by gluten-free or immunity help or whatever it might be, those keywords need to be in your title.

Same thing with your bullet points.

And then one of the most important things about this visual display is look at how great these images are and what a story they're able to tell just by consumers looking at them.

So I always say, don't waste those spaces.

And so I put together some examples for you of good ways to use that.

I would actually like to read that full title that you just showed from Vive Organic.

That's such a great point.

So Vive Organic, vitamin C and immune support shot, cold press, turmeric, ginger, an acerola, cherry, gluten-free, vegan, immunity boost, vitamin C, two full ounces, pack of 12.

That's everything right there, just like you said.

Yes, exactly.

And all of those terms that they used are highly searchable.

In other words, that's what consumers are searching for.

So I do encourage you to have the name in there because you really want your brand to be identified.

But I love that statistic that is actually kind of confidence building for brands is consumers are looking for new items.

So they're searching by characteristics and not brand names.

And that gives you great opportunity Lorena, if you get those right terms in your content.

So based on the experience that we have from other markets and based on some data that we have from the US consumer, we put together what we think is a good title to start with.

And I guess if you could give us some pointers as to how to test that to make sure that we're getting out the right title to the right consumers.

Well, you can AB test your titles.

You can change them all the time to see what resonates with the consumer.

But having seen your title, I would recommend finding some more terms that better define your product and that people are actually searching for.

It kind of leads me, Lorena, into my next point.

And I want to say this from a very sensitive standpoint, but I highly believe that when you're doing business in the US and you have someone managing your business, they should be in the US., right?

I know that you're using a Guatemala agency right now, but I work with tons of international brands and some of my biggest clients are from New Zealand and Australia.

So they speak English like us, right?

But they constantly need help because our nomenclatures are different, our search terms are different than what for Amazon might be different than what people look for on Google.

And so being grounded in the market that you're selling in, I highly recommend looking for some help that is tied to that particular market.

And that would be the same if you were launching in the UK.

I would not recommend a US agency unless they had a presence in the UK.

And so that I think is a really good place to start.

I didn't see anything in your bullet points that really differentiated you or told your story.

People love stories.

And hearing more about your story would be really great in that context.

So when you think about the image carousel of seven images, think about what you can use to really, again, tell your story.

Would it be a note from your founder?

Would it be showing your entire product line, talking a little bit about the advantages of your brand, recipes, more storytelling?

When you have multiple items and you wanna show their nutrient labels and you've done this, you just put it in one slide instead of having four different slides.

If you want to show your ingredient label, you can also double that up with some of your certifications that you wanna show.

So you're not just showing the ingredient label.

There are a lot of things that you can do to really have more impact.

A video is an important one, really important to have video.

And it should be a mute video so people can watch it on their phone or wherever without the volume being turned up, but having headers or whatever they are called so that they can read it.

And then just using a review that was really good, showing your press, any of those sorts of things.

But one of the things I say is don't waste a picture without putting some sort of informative information for your purchasers.

Because really people want the stories.

And looking at yours in particular, you used a couple of beautiful images, but if I didn't know your brand, I wouldn't know if you were talking about honey or pancakes or cereal, because there's no guidance for the consumer on those.

That's one place I would start is with your content.

And I can provide this presentation to you as we go along.

Another thing that you have done really great job on is the variety pack.

So you have a four pack, that's a variety pack.

And I noticed that it's 10.99.

People do not expect your variety pack to be less expensive per unit than your full pack, your 12 pack in this case.

A lot of people charge a premium for their variety pack because it's an opportunity for consumers to try all four products and pay a low dollar ring.

And one of the things I remember you saying is that it's not very profitable.

So what about raising it by two or three dollars instead of 10.99, how about 12.99 and 13.99 and see how it does?

We approach the four pack and the eight pack in a variety configuration from the shoes of the consumer and say, they're not going to buy a 12 pack or something they've never tried.

So they might as well get a variety pack of something that's much lower, but it's not as profitable.

And we knew it from the very beginning, yet we thought it was very important for it to be on the website.

And our sales actually reflect that.

Most of our, if we do a count of what the SKU that most sells, it's the four pack.

So I think you have a great point there, because we hadn't really thought about it that way.

Yeah, and you don't want people to come back and continue to purchase the four pack, because the way you have it set up now, it's less expensive than buying the 12 pack.

By about $3.

And so you really want to move them up to the individual flavors or the larger variety pack.

So I think that would be a good first move for understanding the profitability a little bit better.

I'm writing a lot of your feedback.

We already have a lot to work on.

Betsy, I have a quick question on pricing.

Yes.

When a brand is looking at changing a price, is it much better to do it earlier on?

Are there any ramifications if you're well established and you change a price?

I know certainly if you're thinking about traditional retailers and distributors, changing a price can be really complicated, but how does that work on Amazon?

So not complicated.

It is so not complicated.

And there's a couple of points I want to make about that.

You have 100% control on FBA to change your prices.

The only thing that Amazon really has parameters around is price gouging, but we don't even know how they really define that.

Just to give you an example, I bought a collagen supplement a month ago, went back to buy it this month.

It went up 25% in that time.

Now I would consider that price gouging, but clearly Amazon doesn't because they didn't pull it down.

So it's kind of a nebulous term that we saw play out a lot during COVID when they were really trying to tamp down price gouging on things that people needed during that time, like masks and toilet paper and things like that.

So that's the only thing to be cautious about.

You're not gonna want to raise it from 1099 to 1999, but 1099 to 1299 is fine.

The other thing that makes it different than the shelf is think about being one of 350 million products on the Amazon site.

Do you really think anybody's gonna notice that you changed your price by a couple bucks?

Probably not, you know?

Because it's just not as apparent, not as obvious as when you see it on the shelf as it is on Amazon.

And that's the beauty of Amazon.

So you can test and learn, you know, maybe it isn't the right price point, but at least you get to test and see if it is.

But that's my advice is to look at different price points as you're kind of solidifying your business, but don't go low, because that's not what's going to win you the business.

It's eyes on your brand that are going to win you the business.

And Betsy, I can't help myself to say that because we come from retail, changing a pricing retail takes months.

I know.

And to be able to have that feedback so almost immediate and to work with that data, and I mentioned before that what we're looking for is data.

Yeah, we're definitely going to do some testing.

It's one of the things I love about Amazon is nothing is a life sentence when you're managing your own Amazon account.

When you have your own FBA account, you can change content, you can change pricing, you can add PACs, you can delete PACs, any of those things.

Oh, let me do say one thing about PACs, though, as we're talking about this.

And we mentioned this a little bit the other day.

It is so important to not run out of stock at Amazon.

And I know people say that about every channel, but let me tell you what the difference is.

When you run out of stock at the grocer's shelf, you miss a sale.

Boo hoo, not good for the brand.

But when you run out of stock on Amazon, you are tanking your ranking because all of a sudden you disappear and it can take you 90 days to get back that ranking.

And you spent money on that ranking, i.e.

via advertising or social media or whatever you did to push there.

So it's not just losing a sale, it's losing the standing that you've got for your brand or your products before you went out of stock.

So when you think about it that way, you can really understand how important it is to stay in stock.

Yeah, especially for a product like ours that is being produced in Guatemala and being shipped.

It takes a while.

It does take a while.

So something you want to be really on top of.

If you do run out of stock, is there any way to stall or tread water or is it just a problem?

It's just a problem because if you're out of stock, you're delisted, that product is delisted until there is inventory because the listing is tied to inventory.

Gotcha.

Yeah, that can be a problem.

Now, when you have them all variated together, it does give you the ability to keep the full listing up because you have the others in stock.

But in general, it's really important to aim for having everything in stock at all times.

I wanted to segue to another piece of this presentation.

We're just going to scoot to promotion because, and here, I just wanted to show you this quickly.

This was when I was talking about right product, right pack.

It really does make a huge difference to get the packs right.

A two pack of seventh generation laundry detergent.

Now, why is this, why did I put this in here?

We created this pack when I was at seventh generation.

That's probably 12 or 14 years ago.

In that time, and this is sold to Amazon, so Amazon has control of the pricing.

In that time, this has gone up by $3.

And it's because this pack was like no other in the market.

Doesn't have the same size bottle, isn't the same concentration as in the market.

So the things that you can do for price stability when you're selling to Amazon are really important to differentiate from the rest of your product.

Now, you don't have that problem, but some brands have the problem of, oh, I can only sell in 12 packs because that's how I'm packed.

But that typically isn't the right pack size for the consumer.

You know, variety packs are top sellers, multi-packs when snack size are top sellers.

So there's all different reasons to have a particular pack at a different, at a right price.

But if you're thinking about your product and you know that you're selling, you know, a 12 pack of five ounce bags of chips, it's just not the right pack for the consumer.

And that's going to be a pretty big setback for you.

Yours are the right size.

So yours, you're a good pick.

The way we approach it, when we were designing the pack sizes, which was a while ago, months and months ago, we said we want to have this variety, you know, as I explained earlier, to have the consumer try the smaller sizes and then move into the larger sizes.

We always thought that we were going to put them all out there and that be the ultimate test of which ones we got to keep eventually.

Because right now, we have 12 SKUs.

What product that is four flavors?

You know, it's a bit complicated in terms of what we need to produce here in order to have there and the not running out of stock.

But we want the data.

We want to make data-driven decisions.

So we want the data to speak and then be able to make those decisions.

So it's part of what we've seen as an investment to be able to get the configuration right before we move on to the next phases.

And I think that is a great way to look at it.

Some of my colleagues and I talk about this and there are a couple of us that feel from our experience that you need to have at least eight ASINs or SKUs, Amazon calls them ASINs, to have an effective product mix, right?

Because then it makes sense to advertise against them all.

Then it makes sense to be able to cross sell to them, to cross merchandise together, to have a variety pack.

And so there is a critical point.

You don't want to go too low.

12 really isn't too many, but if you start to see it complicate your production or you're finding that certain things aren't selling, that's a great way to make decisions like completely data-driven as you said, so that you sell only what is serving you best.

Betsy, I have a couple of questions from our audience.

First one is from Tiffany Jones, who wants to know, can you sell alcohol on Amazon?

Nope.

Amazon is great at trying things and seeing if they stick.

And if they do, then they move forward with them.

Toys was one of those where it really didn't do well at first.

But now it's one of the biggest selling categories on Amazon.

They tried wine, but wine didn't work.

And it could be for a number of reasons, not the least of which is every state has their own liquor laws.

And so it makes it so much more complicated.

So they walked away from that a couple of years ago.

So no, currently no alcohol on Amazon.

I love not only that you have the answer, but the history behind it.

Our second question is from Bryson off of LinkedIn.

Bryson has a brand called FlavorA.

He wants to know, would it be possible to get the presentation after the call?

Would it be okay if I shared this with our audience afterwards?

Fantastic.

So Bryson, I will put the presentation in our Slack community, slack.bevnet.com, and you can grab it there.

Great, I'm just gonna go to promotion really quick.

And I'm sorry I'm flipping through this, but when you get it, it will be all information that I think will be very valuable to you.

But we just don't have time to go through it all today.

So one of the things I wanted to make sure that you consider, we talked about content, and yes, A plus content is important.

It doesn't index and search, but Amazon says that it still increases your conversion by about 10% to have this more detailed information.

And Lorena, when you do it, make sure you use this one module that allows you to list characteristics of your brand and all of these icons along the top, click through to that particular ASIN.

So it's great for information as well as cross selling.

And then this is an example of a brand store.

And again, it is something you want to get to, but it's not the most important piece of your content.

Amazon does weigh all three pieces, basic content, A plus and a brand store in determining how well you are integrated as a brand.

So you definitely do need to do these, but it's not really, the brand store is not on the path to purchase.

There really isn't great advantages to it.

So it's why I stress really focus on your basic content, get that right so that you are generating sales and not just beautiful content.

So just to clarify, we do have a brand store.

And I think some of the things you discussed for the first impression to have, perhaps the founder's story or the reviews and the images, we have some of that content in the brand store.

So now with what you've said, we can start testing where it performs best.

Yeah, that's definitely great content to use for your basic.

And then one of the things you said was research.

Well, you have great reviews Safari.

You don't have that many.

You have like nine, but they're all five star and they live with you forever.

So it's so important to make sure your reviews are on the right track.

Over four stars converts at a much higher rate.

And one of the most important things is 76% of consumers are influenced by user generated content, right?

Not brand generated.

So these reviews are your user generated content, but not only are important to consumers, but important to you.

Like what kind of a cheaper consumer panel could you have, right?

If people are telling you exactly what they think of the brand and where there's a problem and what they love about it.

It's great feedback that brands would be smart to use.

And some do.

Some use it really effectively to finesse their products and their listings.

And others don't pay that much attention to it.

But I urge you to pay attention to it because it's really valuable to you.

Now, promotion.

I think you know the two major types of ads you can do, but working with Amazon internally in their ad space is very important.

The second tier here are called sponsored product ads.

And that's what I recommend getting started with when you're a new brand.

Eventually you'll want to add sponsored brand ads, but these are gonna be more affordable based on the search terms you're bidding on because it's pay-per-click.

And it's a great place to test and learn as well as social media from outside.

We used to really talk about depending almost entirely on this advertising platform when selling on Amazon.

But more and more, you need to help generate that traffic too.

So moving from your social media, driving to Amazon for sales.

The beauty of these ads is that when they're tied to a search term, so you're going to get to the page with fruit snacks or fruit chips or whatever it is, and you're going to be right up here, front and center.

So whether people buy it the first time or need to see it seven times, which is what they usually say, you know, results in the sales, then you're right front and center, right?

So it is valuable even if you don't see instant results from it.

So I encourage you to start with that.

Now here's what I call the good news, bad news.

In order to have any kind of real impact, and this depends on your category and how competitive it is, and your product and what kind of product, you know, brand equity it already has in the market, but really starting budgets for advertising have come to be about $3,000 a month.

Now, that doesn't mean the first two or three months you're gonna spend that entire amount because you're gonna be testing and learning, but to be successful, you should plan on spending that much, which is investment spending.

I understand that it's before any sales really, but as you get to a certain threshold, it can become more in line as a percentage of your sales.

You know, one of the biggest things that I see brands stress about is the spending because let's say you get placement and target, your pipeline distribution of product is $150,000 that goes out.

So taking 10% of that, which is $15,000 and spending it against a promotion makes a lot of sense, right?

But with Amazon, you don't have any sales until you spend that money.

So you don't have a pipeline, you don't have an instant distribution of product.

And so a lot of that spending comes up front and it could be, you know, six to nine months before you start to see the impact of breaking even and being profitable because of that investment spending.

And I know that this might vary from category to category, but what is a good percentage of spend over revenue?

So when you get to a critical size, like I would say $500,000, I would consider spending 15% of a good metric.

When you're early on, obviously it's gonna be skewed very dramatically.

And that's when you can't go by a percentage because it won't make sense to you, but it has to be that investment spending.

And I just wanted to make this, this sounds like a little plug, but it's really relevant to people on this call.

I wrote a book called The Amazon Roadmap with my friend and colleague, Phil Siegel.

And we designed this book exactly for young brands.

So even though it's four years old now, we designed it so it wasn't something that was dependent on the trends and the little minutia that goes on in Amazon.

But what are these foundational pieces that I've been talking about to get right before you even launch or to improve if you've already launched?

We really felt that there was a need for it.

Not everybody can afford to work with a consultant or an agency.

And this book will kind of get you off the ground with some of the right information.

Betsy, can folks find that book on Amazon?

We'll link that in our Slack Community as well.

I had one question for you on reviews.

You know, sometimes we'll see two brands that seem sort of neck and neck in terms of exposure.

One will have thousands of reviews and one will have hundreds.

Have you seen any best practices that brands use in order to really inflate those reviews and get a lot of numbers in there?

I wouldn't call it inflate because if you look at some of those brands, and Nut Pods is a good example, they have thousands of reviews, but they've been on the site for, they were one of my first clients, so they've been on the site for nine years.

So a lot of it is about time, but getting quality reviews in the beginning over quantity is really what's gonna help you.

So if you get a hundred reviews and you have a 4.8 star rating, I'd be jumping up and down if I was the brand, rather than a thousand reviews and a four rating or a 3.9, because the volume is important, ultimately, in terms of ranking, but getting the quality is the most important thing when you're starting out.

There's some programs you can use with Amazon.

One's called the Amazon Vine Program, where you can submit samples to be tasted and Vine reviewers sign up for them.

So you typically get people that are interested in that particular category or that particular product tasting it.

But I just use it with a word of caution, because I've seen really good results from it, and I've seen people be really hard on brands.

And so it just, there's no certainty that it will get you the five-star reviews that you're looking for, but it is a legitimate vehicle that Amazon does use.

Excellent.

And are there any other factors we should go through before I turn it back over to Lorena?

I think we covered the big ones, but I urge you to give Amazon months, if not a year or two of a chance before you feel like it's not working for you, because people get discouraged.

Amazon is complicated.

It's not easy and it can be frustrating, but it can be totally worth it in the long run, especially to do like what Lorena is saying is, you're gonna leverage the success into your brick and mortar stores, into your own direct consumer website.

And so it's one of the most important places to get started.

One of the most affordable places to get started.

When you're doing seller central, FBA, you get paid every two weeks, so it helps with cashflow.

Whereas through distributors and retailers, it can be 60 or 90 days.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons to be vigilant about starting with Amazon.

I can't even name them all.

So I just really encourage you to get help where you can, not get discouraged, and find the right formula for your brand.

Thank you so much, Betsy.

Lorena, we certainly heard so many great pointers and such great advice.

What will you take from this?

What do you think some of your next steps might be?

So I think the main lesson here is to look at that first impression, which is that listing page, and go back to work on that title to find more searchable terms, and review the images.

I think what we did, we placed some of the images that can be placed in the main listing, we placed them in the brand page.

And so I think we can review that main listing, maybe add some of that.

And I think Betsy, your point was to get more of the story out to that particular place.

Because in my world, in my checklist, I worked on part of the storytelling, but it's in a different place.

And this, what you're saying here is there's more chance to convert that user into a buyer if I get that information in a different place.

So that's the main one.

And I think we're gonna work on the pricing for the four pack for sure.

And then make sure that when we're, because we're working on the A plus content right now, that we use that module, Betsy, that you recommended to make sure that we have the click through to each one of the ASINs to do the cross selling.

So I think that in itself is a lot of things we can work on.

And then this idea of just testing the information in an organized and consistent way to make sure that we do make these data-driven decisions and are working with consultants that are right for us, you know, for this new market.

Thank you so much, Betsy, for all the great advice for Lorena and Tasu Chips, for all the other brands in our audience.

At a high level, what should they be keeping in mind as they're looking at their Amazon listing and trying to grow their business there?

I think it's all the points that we discussed.

For me, I feel like it's pretty clear.

There's six of them plus the seventh about the people and who's gonna manage it.

But if you get each of those six points underlying your business and you'll get this presentation, so you'll get to see a little bit more detail on it, then you're putting yourself in the best possible position to succeed.

Excellent.

So again, we are going to have that presentation in our Slack community, slack.bevnet.com.

We will also list Betsy's book there as well.

Betsy McGinn, Amazon Guru.

Thank you so much.

Lorena Arathoon and Tasu Chips.

Thank you so much for being our model here.

It's been such a pleasure to have both of you here.

That concludes another episode of the Community Call podcast.

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