Product research has changed! Methods change, and so should you! I am joined by Amazon FBA Expert, Sharon Even to discuss what you need to know when researching products in 2021. In this episode, we will be talking about how new sellers conduct product research today, micro Niching and why it is important, and how much money you actually have is important for when you are researching your next product. Sharon Even started her eCommerce journey 15 years ago selling on trademe.co.nz, she quickly discovered eBay and then had her own Private Label e-commerce store by age 22. In 2016 she discovered Amazon and has since built multiple 6 Figure successful Brands on and off Amazon.
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Sharon Even, an Entrepreneur, YouTuber and the Founder of Amazon Alpha Coaching and Amazon FBA Alphas Community.
Subtitle: “Sometimes You Need to Take a Leap of Faith.”
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-80-product-research-in-2021-w-sharon-even/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Sharon Even, an Entrepreneur, YouTuber and the Founder of Amazon Alpha Coaching and Amazon FBA Alphas Community.
Sharon started her eCommerce journey 15 years ago selling on trademe.co.nz and in 2016, she discovered Amazon and has since built multiple 6 Figure successful Brands on and off Amazon. In this episode, she talks about product research in 2021 and the importance of micro niching.
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Norman 0:02
Hey guys, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch with Norm, The Rise of the Micro Brands.
Norman 0:19
Okay, well, I still feel like a bag of dirt. So we’ll try to get through this podcast. But we have a really exciting guest today. So I’m really happy to be talking with Sharon Even, founder of Amazon Alpha Coaching and you also might recognize Sharon by her popular YouTube channel. Sharon and I are going to be talking about how to research products in 2021. I messed up the other day, I kept saying 2011. I love living 10 years back. But anyways, we’re gonna be talking about micro niching, and how important it is and how to keep your brand building in mind. So before we do that, where’s Kels?
Kelsey 1:04
Hello, hello.
Norman 1:05
Hey.
Kelsey 1:06
How’s it going?
Norman 1:07
You might have to come in and do the questions today or something.
Kelsey 1:11
Oh.
Norman 1:16
Oh man between coughing and feeling. I’m not sure if I’ll get through it.
Kelsey 1:20
Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be here. It looks like we have a bunch of people coming in already. That’s awesome. Darwin. Hey, how’s it going? Milos, Rene. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays to everyone.
Norman 1:37
Marina and Wendy are on again.
Kelsey 1:40
Yeah, that’s great. Awesome. I think just before we start, we should say that we do have a Christmas episode happening. So if you guys are available for lunchtime, come and join us. We’re still doing it.
Norman 1:56
Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Kelsey 1:59
That’s right. Welcome, Lisa. Okay, so everyone joining if you’re new to the podcast, you can always find the full episodes on our YouTube channel. The YouTube channel is Norman Farrar. You can search Lunch with Norm and you’ll be able to find it. So we got Simon joining us, Tom. Nice. We had a great turnout already. This is awesome. So if you guys haven’t either, join our Facebook group or community. I put up a thing about what should we call ourselves and I think it’s pretty clear that we are going to be the Beard Nation. So welcome Beard Nation. It’s brand new.
Norman 2:42
What happens when I shave this thing?
Kelsey 2:44
We have some new people too. Master PC Philomena from Montreal, Quebec, Yarrow and Bia are here. Awesome. So we’re almost 30 viewers already. This is great. Going to be a great show. I don’t want to take up any more time. If you have any questions, put them in the comment section. I’ll be controlling it and if you have any questions during the show, let us know and yet before we start, what’s your favorite.
Norman 3:14
I was gonna say shave. Alright.
Kelsey 3:15
I don’t know if we want to see that. Okay. Enjoy the show everyone.
Norman 3:22
Okay. Now let’s see how my throat holds up. Okay, so for anybody having any questions, you can always throw them in the comment side and we will get to them hopefully during the podcast. If not, we’ll try to answer everything in the group. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show. Sharon.
Sharon 3:47
Hey Norm.
Norman 3:48
Hello. How are you?
Sharon 3:49
I’m good. How are you?
Norman 3:50
Good. Good. So if my throat gives out, I’m just gonna mime okay or we’ll do Shree.
Sharon 3:57
No problem. I’m here. Don’t worry.
Norman 3:59
Alright.
Sharon 4:00
I’ll just keep talking. I’m good at talking.
Norman 4:03
Perfect. Good. I’m not.
Sharon 4:06
I’m great. I can toggle this or completely on that one.
Norman 4:11
Awesome. So why don’t we talk a little bit about who you are, what’s your background?
Sharon 4:17
Who I am. So I’m Sharon Even my background is, what is my background? I’m not 100% here and we weren’t say white, but I was just laughing a lot before we came on, so I need to refocus. Okay, so I am Sharon Even, and I am originally from New Zealand. I moved to Israel about 10 years ago, and I started selling online when I was 15 on trademe.co.nz which is like the eBay version of New Zealand. I had my first online store when I was a teen and at Israel also had a clothing store and then I discovered Amazon is 2016 and that’s it. Now I’m doing this kind of stuff, which is interesting.
Norman 5:11
2016? That’s not that long.
Sharon 5:13
No. It’s four years.
Norman 5:14
Yeah, that’s what the beauty is about Amazon, right is that you can know nothing about eCommerce, you can really get involved, take a course, go to a couple masterminds and you can make money if you do it properly. Right away and it and I’m not talking about getting rich quick. No, like, I hate the Lamborghini with cash. This is work. This is a job and if you dig into it, and you learn all the different angles, it’s the only business in the world that I think you can do this like eCom. I love eCon.
Sharon 5:57
Yeah, I wouldn’t say I was new to eCommerce, because that’s what I’ve been doing my entire adult life. But it was kind of weird that I, out of all the people, discovered Amazon early in 2016. It’s kind of weird. How did I not discover it so much earlier, but until around then I was just sure that Amazon was a place where you buy books, I didn’t even know because what you see in America, I know that you’re in Canada, etc. It’s not the same on the other side of the world, like from New Zealand, in New Zealand and Australia. Amazon is not what it is in America and in Israel when I moved here, people weren’t really buying stuff on Amazon. So I discovered it in 2016, but eCommerce has been like I was bred into it. kind of thing.
Norman 6:46
Perfect. I’ve been in this longer than I want to remember longer than most people listening. Probably. Wow, that’s kind of scary.
Sharon 7:01
That’s a long time.
Norman 7:03
It’s a long time back to the BBS days. I wasn’t selling on eCommerce at all with the 1200 baud modems when you attach them to your phone. But yeah, I was involved with bulletin boards way back in the day, compuserve and AOL and compuserve email address. I mean, I was a geek back then.
Sharon 7:31
I was probably five back then when that happened.
Norman 7:37
I don’t think you were born then. How’s that?
Sharon 7:39
Probably not.
Norman 7:40
So we’re gonna be talking a bit about product research going into 2021. So are there any differences that you’re seeing in product research from 2020 to 2021?
Sharon 7:59
Here’s the thing, I have my own ways of doing product research, which is kind of different from hype tees. I’m different from most and it’s not necessarily that it’s different towards 2021 because my product research methods haven’t really changed. I’ve never done the whole software thing anyway. But I do think that coming into 2021, COVID did open up a whole world of niches than what was beforehand, right and I also think that it’s even more important to stop relying on softwares coming towards 2021 and what I mean by software is parameters, right? Going into softwares and looking at specific parameters to find the products or potential products and so yeah, I think 2020 has taught us a lot about many things, not just product research, I’ve always said to never put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t rely only on Amazon, make sure you also work outside of Amazon and then I don’t know if you know, I got four products taken down in October on Prime Day for almost a month. You don’t know about it, I apologize about it, because I made a video called the Ugly Side of Amazon and I shared my story of what I went through. It was terrible.
Norman 9:28
Kelsey, why don’t we know about this?
Sharon 9:32
There’s was so many people from the industry were trying to help me basically, I’m pretty sure it was an inside job and someone had uploaded a flat file with heaps and heaps of drug related keywords and took down for my listings and it forever to get them back and anyway, I won’t bore you with it, but when it happened, I was like, look at me telling everyone not to be dependent on Amazon and then Amazon fulfills all of my outside of Amazon and then when your products get restricted, because they were fully restricted, I couldn’t fulfill my own orders and then I hit and that was me telling, I couldn’t do multi channel fulfillment, they wouldn’t let me fulfill my orders and it was me telling him to not rely on Amazon and so yeah, 2020 has taught me a lot of things and one of them is to start using 3PLs more, and not just talking about using 3PLs, but actually start using them and for product research, I think it’s just a great time for people to stop using softwares and to start looking at actually what’s happening right now, because the softwares are looking at history. Right and they don’t know that there is COVID right now, and things are changing because of COVID. Right? So you got to use a little bit of your brain and not just rely on softwares and and start using other methods.
Norman 10:59
Okay, let’s go through some of those methods.
Norman 11:01
Cool. So you want me to tell you some of my secrets, my top secret?
Norman 11:08
Absolutely.
Sharon 11:09
Okay. I mean, one of my typical methods that’s like pretty well known, is hobbies. So I made a video about this on YouTube, about a year and a half ago, I think, or a year ago, where I go to Google, I type in hobbies, and I find different types of hobbies and then I really go to micro niching, finding products around a certain hobby. For example, did you know that there’s such a thing called insect pinning? You actually pin dead insects. Did you know this?
Norman 11:43
I didn’t. I’m sorry.
Sharon 11:48
You didn’t? Okay.
Sharon 11:57
I didn’t know that there’s such a thing as pinning. Right? Carlos had me once and then I told him, did you know about insect pinning and I didn’t know at the time that he was an insect guy. Yeah, I guess you are as well. But anyway, so yeah, I’m sure a lot of people do not know that people collect insects and pin them and they need supplies, right? They need pins, they need boards. So when you go to look at hobbies, you can find a whole bunch of hobbies that you don’t even know about, you can find products around that. Sometimes there’ll be products as a supplier to that hobby. Sometimes it will be products that are like, for example, if we take bowling, right? So you have bowling or and Uranus is, yeah, it’s pretty gross. If you take bowling as an example. So most people will just look at bowling and then what I do is I niche it down. So I asked myself, who can I sell bowling products to? So seniors, women, men, kids, and if it’s kids, what age group because there’s babies so I niche it down and then I start finding stuff and I’m pretty good at finding gaps. So that’s one example.
Norman 13:11
Before you go on to the next example, when you talk about micro niching and let’s say you find the needles for the little insects or a board, you can really build out a great brand and because it allows you to go so far, or you can go really wide and you can get all sorts of things related to that niche, you could even expand out. So let’s say you get outside of insects, or whatever it is whatever else needs boards, whatever else needs pins. I don’t know what that would be. But you can really build a great brand, just using that one method that you talked about.
Sharon 13:54
Well, one of the things I should say is I don’t personally believe anymore in selling random products, I only believe in brand building and that’s the only thing that I do.
Norman 14:07
That’s why I like you so much.
Sharon 14:09
I know a lot of sellers the same way you know a lot of sellers and I know that there are a lot of sellers that do really well from selling random products and there’s a lot of sellers that do really well at building brands and for me, it just makes so much more sense when you know who your buyer avatar is, you know who you’re selling to, and you build a brand around it. So that is a way that I work and no matter what when I’m doing product research, one of my first questions is what can I build around this? So I don’t usually bring out products that are just like one product and that’s it, there’s nothing else you can sell within it. But I 100% agree with you. When you get into that sometimes, you can repurpose serve. If you’re using a pin for one thing, sometimes you’ll find that you can repurpose it for something else. No, go for it.
Norman 15:07
Sorry about that. What I was gonna say is that I love building brands, you love building brands. But there’s nothing wrong if somebody wants to get into doing exactly the opposite of what we’re talking about, if you just want to throw up a product, or if you’re into retail arbitrage, you’re getting into wholesale, there’s some great opportunities for you, but I just think there’s more equity in building a brand.
Sharon 15:34
I feel like, for me, I’ve never done anything else. I’ve been involved in wholesale as a silent investor and I have never done it myself where I’ve had to, so I don’t really have much experience in anything but private labels. You’re right, of course, like you can make money other ways. But I feel that when you’re chasing after products all the time, that’s what you’re doing, you forever need to find more products. Because Amazon products, there is a shelf life, or an expiration until when a niche becomes saturated. Right and if all you have is 123 random products. Two, three years down, most of the time, it’ll get saturated, and then you’ll have to continuously find more products. Whereas when you’re building a brand, you can also build your brand outside of Amazon, as well. Right? I was listening to you the other day and you were talking about how you rediscovered eBay again, and that made me think and I said to my husband and you said that you also have a beauty brand and we also have a beauty brand and I was like, How the hell did we like not get back on eBay? So it also made me think about that, but anyway, back to product research. As I was saying earlier, repurposing, right? So repurposing is another great way to do product research. Many many times you can find one product and repurpose it and sell it to a totally different buyer avatar. Right and I’m trying to think of an example right now for you.
Norman 17:26
I’ve got an example for you. So one of the products I sell is soap. So I sell just natural soap, and I can sell it in a five ounce bar and people will pay 10 bucks for it. Then I can go and this is just a niche guys, don’t get into this niche. It sucks. But anyways, I just got into notters so these are people that like to abuse their body, do all these obstacle courses, run through the mud, get completely filthy and I mean anything other than walking up the stairs and down the stairs is too much exercise for me. So I’ll never do this obstacle course. But I sell dead sea mud soap to motters and with the logo or with the caption get clean with mud and it’s just dead sea mud and so anyways, now I’ve got all these motters buying this soap and they’re bigger blocks I can sell it for a heck of a lot more and yeah, it’s just the thing now so that’s just repurposing and it could be almost for any sport or hobbyist like it again, just soap for these different types of hobbies, sports soaps, or people who play golf like green soaps. I don’t know I’m just making that one up.
Sharon 18:43
That’s very true what you’re saying especially about the dead sea stuff that’s what did you said? What was it how you called it?
Norman 18:51
Get clean with mud.
Sharon 18:53
Get clean with mud. I love that. That’s very, very smart.
Norman 18:56
Yeah, so I just played around with that and it can be very successful when you do that and what I love about repurposing sometimes you can’t do it. But if you position it right, you can definitely repackage and reprice products and here’s another, okay, Dead Sea again. So how the typical dead sea mud comes in a 16 ounce container and it’s going for about 24.99 on Amazon now. Well, let’s say you’re selling that, you could repackage it into a much smaller, higher, just a premium bottle, four ounce, which I’ve done by the way, and resold out at 24.99. Now I’m getting 24.99 competing with the guy selling it at 16.99 and probably selling more because people like the bottle.
Sharon 19:47
Yeah.
Norman 19:49
Love that you said repurposing.
Sharon 19:52
Yeah. So, repurposing is something that a lot of people don’t like. What I mean is exactly what you also set. So I’ll give an example. You know how there’s watering cans, right? Just a normal watering can, right? So on a decor level or how do you say it ? Do you say decor or decor?
Norman 20:17
Decor.
Sharon 20:18
Decor?
Norman 20:20
Well, that’s Canadian. You mentioned the English way and the American way well.
Sharon 20:28
Australian and New Zealand are even worse. I don’t even know how say it in Australian but I think decor so for example, you have a watering can which is just a normal watering can and then there’s this new thing, which is like an outdoor gardening decor and you’ve got a watering can, they’ve added fairy lights to it and now it’s like an actual thing, like people are buying a watering can with fairy lights and they’re placing as like art type of thing, right? Repurposing a product or taking bath bombs and instead of selling them as a bath bomb, you may know this example of Maayan but selling it as the bridesmaid proposal gift and then it’s actually got bath bombs in it, but you don’t even target the keyword bath bombs, right? Or taking a clock and instead of selling a clock, selling a clock for specifically like a time of kids but when they brush their teeth, or taking a product that exists but giving it a new purpose many, many times is heaps and heaps of different gaps that you can find and one of those ways that I find them is usually through Pinterest. Pinterest is my best friend. So I’m on Pinterest all day long from the morning until evening. Like that’s not true but a lot. I don’t have time to be all day long. But I’m on Pinterest, someone said Pinterest is gold. Pinterest is really the way to go when it comes to product research.
Norman 22:07
So let’s talk about that for a second with Pinterest. I know. My partner in Centurion, Tim Jordan. He uses Pinterest all the time. So why don’t you talk a little bit about how you can find products on Pinterest.
Sharon 22:25
Well, first of all, I’ve been using Pinterest for years way before and I’m not kidding. I’m saying the truth. But I do love Tim. I know that he uses Pinterest as well. Pinterest is very woman orientated. So even before I was selling, I was using Pinterest. I go to Pinterest for everything. Like during COVID either went to Pinterest to download all sorts of things for my kid to color in so Pinterest, I love Pinterest. On a product research level, you’d still need a starting point, you can’t just go on Pinterest and mess around. Like you need to have a starting point, right? You need to have some sort of niche that you’re started with. So for example, with Pinterest, let’s just say I’ll mix two things together. Okay, let’s say one of my product research methods is careers. So I will write down a whole bunch of different careers and then I’ll write all sorts, so let’s just say a speech therapist. Okay and then I’ll go to Google and I look at different speech therapist products like products that speech therapists need to do their job, right and then that’ll be my starting point. I’ll take that and I’ll go to Pinterest, and then I’ll look for ideas there and then I’ll compare what’s on from Pinterest on Amazon and most of the time, many, many products from Pinterest will actually take you to Etsy. So what you usually have on my million tabs when I’m on my computer is you’ll have Amazon, Brand analytics, Helium 10 for the keywords, Pinterest, Etsy, and then a million products that opened up a specific potential products, but like heaps of different Pinterest ones as well and it’s either a starting point where it’s broad. So for example, like the speech therapist, or if it’s decor and I wanted to look at music room decor, then I’ll go to type in music room decor, and then I’ll just start going down the rabbit hole from there, or if it could be product specific. So if I’m looking, I don’t know, I have a ruler here. Let’s just say somehow I find a ruler. I was looking at rulers and I wanted to sell a ruler for some really stupid reason. I could go on Pinterest and then it can give me all sorts of different ideas for rulers, right?. I don’t know, maybe I’ll find a Montessori wooden looking one, right that I wouldn’t know about and through that, I learned so much through Pinterest. Sometimes you discover things like insect picking, I mean, as well through that kind of stuff. So I use Pinterest for ideas because we have this thing where we live in our bubble, right? You don’t know what you don’t know. So if I’m not a speech therapist, and I don’t know what the type of products that they’re looking at that they have, as in they have all sorts of different flashcards and things like that. I can get ideas for different types of flashcards and things like that through Pinterest and then you got to go and compare that to Amazon, right? Pinterest is great for differentiation, basically, I would say and ideas.
Norman 25:44
Yeah and I think the important thing you already mentioned is to go back to Amazon to validate it, maybe go and see the search volume, and the competitiveness using Helium 10 app or something like that. Have you ever gone to any crowdfunding sites to do research?
Sharon 26:05
I have. Let’s just lift my mind. Kickstarter? Yeah, Kickstarter. I have done that. I don’t do it that often. But what I do do and people who follow me know this, I watch at least two episodes of Shark Tank every single day, like every day and the thing is, there’s years and years of Shark Tank, and there’s, for example, Shark Tank Australia, and you watch Shark Tank Australia as an example and honestly, like 90% of the products, they don’t even sell on Amazon, right? Many, many times they may have a patent, but it’s a design patent. I know this is for the Shark Tank people, but it’s great for us as people that want to sell products and many many times you can find ways around their design patents because you just change your design or there’s certain things that you can do many of them don’t even have patents. So I do get a lot of ideas from places like that as well. But I will say that there are many, many, many hidden treasures in watching Shark Tank. Shark Tank Australia, Shark Tank America.
Norman 27:21
The original Shark Tank in Canada, and it was called Dragon’s Den.
Sharon 27:27
Dragon’s Den. That’s right. The UK also has Dragon’s Den. So if you watch that, and there’s years and years of episodes of it on YouTube, there’s so many like I’ve just found so many products using that and you go to Amazon, and they’re not there.
Norman 27:47
Yeah, I know. That’s the crazy part.
Sharon 27:50
I’m just like, how do these people go to Shark Tank and they’re not on Amazon? Like, what’s wrong with them?
Norman 27:56
I love it, because it really does show people especially if they don’t know a lot about planning, business planning or just putting a plan together what investors are looking for. But if you want to just cut to the chase, I know with Dragon’s Den, you can go right to the products list, and you can just whip through them and it’s really kind of cool. The other big one right now is Etsy. Etsy is going crazy. I was saying, I think it was the last podcast or podcast before that. That Dave kettner. He’s just putting out a course on it. But he’s using print on demand on Etsy, not putting any money into inventory and this month, I’m sure he’s not going to worry about me saying this, but over the last three weeks or so, this month, he’s made over $67,000 in sales on Etsy. So Etsy, it’s gonna be coming back because it used to be only handmade items, right? Now they’re accepting a whole bunch of new items. So that’s another nice one I like.
Sharon 29:11
Are you on Etsy with any of your beauty products?
Norman 29:14
No, I got to get on. I got an account. I started selling on Etsy. I handed it over to somebody and it never went. Just like eBay, I gotta get back on.
Sharon 29:26
With Etsy, you also know that I do a lot of one-on -one coaching and it’s just ridiculous the amount of people and like, Are you also selling this on Etsy and they’re like, Oh no. I didn’t even think about it. I’m like, Why? Why aren’t you selling on Etsy? I’ve got someone that I coach and she’s very active in my group. She sells toys. She’s made thousands on Etsy this month. So many people and you’re right, like, there are some rules though with Etsy, but there’s also ways to get around the rules for not being a handmade product. So there are ways to get around it, but Etsy in my opinion, it’s not for every product, but it’s for many, many products. Especially kid’s toys and even beauty. There’s all sorts of things around beauty and decor products and wooden products and there’s just an endless amount of products that everyone that is selling on Amazon should go and check if they can also sell it on Etsy. What’s the worst case scenario?
Norman 30:36
Exactly. What’s the worst case scenario? So Kelsey, it looks like there’s either a lot of comments or a lot of questions happening.
Kelsey 30:45
A lot of both right now. Before we get into that, I think this would be a great time to announce a little giveaway today. So for today’s giveaway, we have a 30 minute consultation with Sharon. So to enter the giveaway today, so this is for anyone that hasn’t won a consultation yet on Lunch with Norm. So if you’ve won before, with Maayan or any of the other guests, please don’t enter this one. I’ll be checking. But to enter, just tag two people and let’s get the word out. So as soon as you tag two people, it will be entered into the draw into our little Wheel of Kelsey, that’s what we call here on the show and yeah, so if you have a question about how to @ someone, all you have to do is hit the at symbol and write the person’s name and that’s it. Super simple. Okay, so we do have tons of questions come in.
Norman 31:46
By the way, we are going to have a second prize today too. This is just a premium box of chocolates.
Sharon 31:58
I want it too.
Kelsey 32:02
Okay, so for the chocolates, just #chocolates. I think that’ll be easier.
Norman 32:07
It would have been better if it was #beard guy, but okay.
Sharon 32:12
#beardguy. I agree with that.
Norman 32:13
There we go.
Sharon 32:17
I also voted by the way.
Norman 32:19
Did you?
Sharon 32:21
I think it was something else. I can’t remember. It was another one. I can’t remember. I have to look it uo.
Norman 32:29
Travelocity gnome?
Kelsey 32:30
Normies. The bearded ones. The Beard Nation.
Sharon 32:36
It was Beard Nation.
Norman 32:37
There we go.
Sharon 32:38
I love it. I love Beard Nation.
Kelsey 32:41
Okay. So from Henrietta. Sharon, so where else do you so sell?
Sharon 32:49
We sell on our online store and on Amazon today. That’s what we sell today. But I’ve sold everywhere there is to sell so that’s where we’re out today.
Kelsey 33:01
Let me see.
Norman 33:06
I just want to add that having an online store, Shopify, or WooCommerce, wherever. If you properly market and if you’ve got a great product, great customer service. It doesn’t even have to be in a price range. If you’ve got high perceived value, you can charge an arm and a leg. But you can compete and I can show you example after example, after example, as long as you market on either Facebook or Pinterest or wherever. You can have a really successful eCommerce site. So don’t forget about that. We talked a lot about Amazon. But there are so many other platforms and I can give you so many examples of where we’ve outperformed Amazon just because we targeted our audience properly.
Sharon 33:58
Wait, we don’t send any of our outside traffic to Amazon anymore. We send all of our outside traffic to our stores, online stores. First of all, you also sell beauty products. So you know this, we have an endless amount of repeated buyers like we have people coming back for their 100 plus order every single month. You want our products to keep working, well maybe you don’t sell those types of beauty products. But we do. We have all sorts of different anti aging products as well and we also have a baby brand which is a postpartum brand. I’m not talking about that one. I’m talking about this one where you’re selling products that people need every single month. Why the hell would I continue sending them to Amazon? I don’t need Amazon. I want to earn my buyers where I can do whatever the hell I want with them. Right? So I send all my traffic to my stores. I will say that I was on Etsy as well. But we did get kicked off Etsy.
Norman 34:58
Oh, you were the person?
Sharon 35:00
I was probably one of the many. We did get kicked off just because our products weren’t handmade and we did say that they were and then but they weren’t and they were actually. But you can’t get around it. There are different ways to get around it and after watching Norm a couple of weeks ago, I’m going to get back into eBay as well. Because I was like, Oh I tell everyone diversify, diversify, and yeah eBay’s not dead.
Norman 35:34
No way. It’s coming back. Alright Kels, next question or comment?
Kelsey 35:40
How do you know if your product will be successful or not before starting?
Norman 35:46
For me, it’s proper research. Go ahead and answer that Sharon.
Sharon 35:57
First of all, you don’t want to 100% know anything and I could be launching a product and you could be launching a product, we’ll have different results. But the best thing that you can do is number one, know your keywords. So you have to go ahead and understand keyword research, you need to understand the ability for market share within, this is something that a lot of people speak about. So Helium 10, has a tool called Market tracker. Before Helium 10 had Market tracker, I was using a software called Teteletechs, which is just for understanding market caps or understanding market volume, what is the cap for your specific niche, and then understanding the potential of market share within that niche and this is stuff that like I could talk about for a long time. But if we make a list of things that you need to do in order to know if a product is successful or not is one, is there demand for it? Right? Do people actually want it? Two, is there room for new sellers, and you can understand that through understanding how to do it, understanding if there’s room for you through market share, if you can actually have a piece of the pie and the way that you also need to know that is three, through differentiation. I think differentiation is something that is a must in 2021 in many, many, many, many niches if you want to sell a product for the long term, okay, for not just for five to six months. But if you want us to continue selling the product for the long term differentiation is important and the most important thing is also are you actually going to make money out of the product. So knowing your numbers and you won’t know 100% until you actually stop.
Norman 37:41
Yeah, the other part to this and I know that you already do this, when you’re doing it is competitive research. So you might find that plastic shoe stretcher that other people are doing and can you compete with their listing? Or what are they doing right in their listing? What are they doing wrong in their listing? I know you hear this a lot, but check out the reviews for negative and positive and I mean, it could be as simple as like you were talking about differentiation. It might be taking a red shoe stretcher and making a plaque. Sorry, it was my mic, and they’re good but making it black. It could be that simple. So you don’t know. But the other part to this, which I think is really important as well. So research. So I like Pickfu. You just rip apart the research or the images, the titles, the bullets. But the other thing that I like is just a Traffic Blitz. If I have a plan, like I know the research, and I check and see if I can drive traffic over or turn on the PPC or turn on other forms of marketing to dominate. Like usually when I go in, I know I’m going to be able to compete at the top level. That’s where I want to come into the marketplace and anyways, the biggest part for me other than what Sharon was talking about is making sure not only your numbers, that’s probably number one, but also competitiveness or competition.
Sharon 39:17
So when I talked about the Market Tracker, that’s exactly what it does. It’’s analyzing the entire niche through understanding where your competitors are at. But yes, I 100% agree with you like competition analysis and market analysis come in together and understanding who your competition is. Right and then sometimes people say to me, but I was comparing myself to this product and I’m like, have you seen their storefront? They dominate this niche. You can’t, you don’t have a chance against them. Yeah, understanding also who your competitors are, and what their flaws are and for me also one of the most important things is understanding who you’re selling to. So understanding your buyer avatar. I don’t get into big huge products, I get into niches, I really believe in micro niching and niching it down. You don’t have to have a 50 $60,000 product to be successful in Amazon, you can have lots of smaller 10 plus $1,000 products a month, times 10, 20 of those over time and be pretty successful and I don’t necessarily think that everyone needs to. When you talk about market analysis, okay, and you look at you see who are the real huge top sellers, the ones that the high rollers, the ones that have been established for a really long time, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have the ability to get in there, you can just find a gap within that niche, you know what I mean? You don’t have to be selling as much as them to have a piece of that pie. You just need to find another gap within that niche. You’d look like you, you’re lost about what I’m saying to you what I’m saying?
Norman 41:13
No, no. I get 100% of what you’re saying.
Sharon 41:16
No, people, a lot of the times they want to just be number one within a market and the thing is, it’s great if you can be but there’s many many times where you don’t have to be number one and make a significant amount of money. You can micro niche and only focus on one specific buyer avatar within that, and only market to them. Right? So instead of marketing I’m going to give a terrible example. But I’ve just got a water bottle here. Instead of selling water bottles, like just selling water bottles with unicorns on them and then you’re just going after the little girls that like the unicorns. Terrible example. Nobody sells water bottles.
Norman 41:56
Now we’re gonna be swamped on Amazon with water bottles with unicorns. Every social media platform has their own trends, but Google Trends, like typing your keyword and see, how the trend is for that keyword?
Sharon 42:15
I use Keywords Everywhere on Google. You know Keywords Everywhere? So first of all, it automatically shows you through Google the history of the trend of that keyword, but I definitely use Google Trends. You can also use it through Helium 10, as well and I use everything there is to use to understand. When I validate a product, I look a lot at the history of it, but a lot at what can I bring to the table that’s new as well. So just because one person didn’t do well within that niche, doesn’t mean that I can’t do well. I don’t know everything that they went through. Well, you can know what kind of keywords are going after and things like that. But just because one product may not be doing so well doesn’t mean that I can’t kick us in it and probably can.
Norman 43:08
Yeah, there’s one other app that we use, and that’s to find out what keywords are actually converting and so we’ll use Seller tools, seller.tools and you’ll see all the keywords, and you might have something with, let’s say 5000 search volume, and another one that has 2500 search volume, and another keyword that has 600 search volume, the tool that seller.tools has will actually show you out of all this huge list of keywords that you’re going after what’s actually selling, so it might be the one that’s only doing 600 search volume per month, and you might be getting 50 orders, the one with 5000 might be getting 20 orders. So putting time and effort into that keyword is much better than putting it into the larger keywords. So that’s just one of those validation apps that we use to make sure that we’re going after those right keywords.
Sharon 44:12
Yep. I should use Seller tools. I feel like I need to look into it.
Norman 44:17
Try it out. That’s one of the little like, not gonna say nugget, not gonna say nugget. It’s one of the things that’s just gold with that app. Yeah, they did a really great job over there.
Sharon 44:36
So they actually tell you what keywords convert? How can they know keywords convert? I’d love to understand how they know that.
Norman 44:43
You got to talk to Troy and Brendan. I have no idea how they do it. But it actually works like with our rebate when we’re doing rebates or rebate management for clients. That’s the tool that we use. So we go into Helium 10, pull out all the silos, go over to seller tools and find out what we should be targeting. It’s excellent, really good.
Sharon 45:12
You know I don’t do rebates. I do other things and PPC, but I feel like I need to go to that app as soon as we finish this podcast, I’m gonna check out seller tools.
Norman 45:22
I’ll get them on, we’ll get them on the podcast too. But yeah, sure. Yeah, check it out. It’s very good. Now, one of the things I tell everybody especially if you’re new, you’re going to hear all these apps and all these tools that we all kind of use. But right now, find one app that you’re happy with. So that could be Helium 10, it could be Amazon Scout, it could be Seller tools and you can get most of what we’re talking about done with that one tool. No need to spend a ton of money on tools that kind of overlap because none of them and for some reason I like they just all don’t do the same thing. One will get better alerts like I love SentyKit, for example. They do a great job with alerts.
Sharon 46:11
I love Quantify Ninja for notifications. Have you heard about Quantify Ninja?
Norman 46:15
Yes. Tomer told me about them.
Sharon 46:17
I’ve been using Quantify Ninja for like three years. I think. It’s the best freakin tool ever and no one knows about it, because it’s an Israeli software. Like it’s not in Hebrew. It’s in English. A lot of Israeli sellers use it. It’s probably one of the best apps out there for notifications.
Norman 46:37
Yeah, that’s Quantify Ninja. So anybody, check it out. There we go.
Sharon 46:47
Kelsey, your spot on.
Kelsey 46:51
Okay, so we had some questions coming in about the repurpose content.
Norman 46:56
Yeah.
Kelsey 46:56
Okay, let’s see. Let’s go through all these. It was at the very top. So Usman and Fatiha they both asked, How do you repurpose? What if customers don’t buy? How do you validate that repurpose and just to add on to that if you targeted two audiences by repurposing when that confused customers, should we just aim at one and then spread out into different areas? So there’s a lot to unpack there.
Sharon 47:27
Cool. Norm, can I answer that?
Norman 47:28
Yes, absolutely. You’re my guest
Sharon 47:32
For repurposing, let’s understand. So first of all, when I do product research, I’m selling to a buyer avatar. I know who my buyer avatar is and I’m selling to them. Okay? Repurposing your product if we all love Tim Jordan and let’s use a Tim Jordan example even though I found this myself but I know Tim Jordan does it too as we know for example, gardening seeds right so taking gardening seeds but selling it as a party favor. Okay? That is repurposing a product. Taking hair ties, normal hair ties, putting them in a specific type of packaging and selling it as a party favor for little girls. That is repurposing a product you’re taking one product but you’re selling it to a different buyer avatar. You could be packaging it differently but you’re repurposing it for something else specifically. Okay, that is what I mean when I’m talking about repurposing your product. You’re taking one product that is sold to a broad customer, a buyer avatar and you’re focusing specifically on one type of buyer avatar, right? Does that make sense? Then how do you know if people are looking for it? First of all, it depends on the product. You’re not going to sell something if there’s no keywords for it, no one’s looking for it then you know you’re not probably going to sell it or you’ll have to try it first right? So you’re taking a product that exists so a clock and taking that clock if we have a clock that’s a broad clock but making instead of just a normal clock, selling a clock to seniors that reminds them what day it is okay? People without time, it’s reminding him of the date, reminding them the year, whatever it is. Taking something broad and repurposing it to a specific buyer avatar. One of my examples I use a lot is a portable bidet, okay? A gross product, get over it. Portable bidet but selling it specifically is a parry bottle. So two women after they’ve given birth, so instead of just a normal portable bidet, you’re repurposing it specifically to women who have given birth, have stitches, whatever it may be. Gross, I know but we’ll I don’t care. So taking a product from one place and repurposing it and focusing on a specific type of buyer avatar. That’s what it’s all about. I frickin love repurposing. I can speak about it all day.
Norman 50:15
I’m the same and if it doesn’t work, I think that was one of them. The old 80-20, you’ll get some sales like Ben Cummings talks about this. He talked about it a lot in the earlier days. But just bunts, be satisfied with a bunt and like going back to the motters, I know that motters want this but how do they find it if it’s never been sold on Amazon? So I’ve got to get their attention to get it over to Amazon or over to my website. So that’s the key is just making sure that you’re able, if the keywords are there, and people are looking for it, no problem. But if you’ve got to bring people’s attention to it, then you’ve got to target them. So that might be on Facebook ads to get them to come over.
Sharon 51:07
The way that I do it, if I’m bringing or if I’m coaching someone who’s bringing in a product that does not exist on Amazon, I’m very hardcore PPC. So all I need is keywords to piggyback off, if I can find the keywords to piggyback off, then I’m fine. Right? That makes sense for that specific product. Okay. Like you said, sometimes you’ll bring out a product and it won’t work. You and I were first met when we were talking about a failed product and I told you about one of my failed products. Look we won’t get into it because you’ll probably not stop laughing again. But it’s not every product is gonna work and that’s why you also trial you don’t just order 5000 units. Well, I don’t anyway, from day one, you trial things and if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, move on.
Norman 52:02
That’s it.
Sharon 52:04
Yeah, otherwise you get into analysis paralysis, and all you’re doing is looking all day instead of doing
Kelsey 52:11
Okay, so we have another question from Radd. How do you target a group for example, outdoor campers?
Sharon 52:20
Well, it’s not just outdoor campers, you got to niche it down. So there’s millions of products you can sell to outdoor campers. So what are you selling specifically to outdoor campers? You need to start making you a list of potential buyers or potential products and if it’s a potential product, then who are you selling that potential product to? So is it an outdoor camper for people like outdoor? Wait, what’s a camper specifically?
Kelsey 52:48
People who camp.
Sharon 52:50
Just like camping people right? So these already different products that you can sell to campers right? Like it could be anything. For niching it down, it really depends. Is it to help them pack, or is it products to help people who are disabled when they’re camping? Is it a product to help mothers while they’re with their kids on camping? Is it the actual camping gear? That’s the whole point of niching it down. That’s the whole point of doing the product research so your starting point is camping or outdoor or any camping related work and then from there, you go to niche it down to write yourself the different types of event products that campers need and then you ask yourself how can I sell this product to? Give me a camping product.
Norman 53:43
Outdoor grill. How’s that?
Sharon 53:45
No, another thing. I can’t think. I’m not good with grills.
Norman 53:49
Okay, how about a fire pit? A portable fire pit.
Norman 53:55
Okay, so what about if you’re camping with your kids? I don’t know if anyone cares about this. You have to go check your keywords. If you’re camping with your kids and you want your kids not to go nick close to the portable fire kit things. What about making like selling a specific toy? That is like a portable fire kit that you take with you so your kids can do it? Right or what if we’re looking at what kind of gear do they need for the portable fire kit? I wish you wouldn’t have said portable fire kit. Let’s just say like even if it’s a tent, okay, or even if it’s the gear for the tent, or I don’t know what the hell camp is made of. I’m not like a camping person but I know like for example packing right? So packing for camping or things like that. What are the products that you need as a camper? Know who your buyer avatar is, go into Facebook groups of campers and look, get what they need or go to YouTube and watch what Youtubers pack or families that go camping. What are all the things that the Youtubers say that they need? There’s usually a whole list in the description of products that they need for when they’re doing their camping and then start niching it down that way, right? The first thing I do when I find a potential product is I say, Who can I sell this to? Then it usually goes like this. Seniors, moms, dads, women, men, kids, okay? Solar lights, what the hell do you do with solar lights when you’re camping?
Norman 55:38
Alright Radd. You’re on the spot.
Sharon 55:41
I’m just asking, like, what do you do solar lights when you’re camping?
Norman 55:43
Actually, that would be really great because a lot of times, if you’re in the middle of the woods, and you’ve got a candle or a lantern, solar lights actually would be a fantastic idea. There you go. Radd, there you go.
Sharon 56:03
There you go Radd. You found your product. Go through the keywords for it.
Norman 56:06
That’s actually a really great one for travel or for camping and being in the backwoods of Canada.
Sharon 56:14
I don’t really don’t camp so I don’t know, but when I don’t know something I just go learn about it. Portable FireGod for the kids says Helen. Say that’s what I’m saying. When someone says, How do I find products for outdoors or for camping? Go and learn what the products they need. I don’t know anything about it. So I’d have to go learn about what potential buyers need. What are the products they need? Who can I sell it to because I like to niche it down to a specific type of buyer avatar and then , that’s how you find your gaps in the market. I know I have an example in my head. I’m just not going to say it because it’s actually something that someone I’m coaching is working on. But there’s lots of little gaps.
Norman 56:58
Yeah, and one of the things that you might look at, that portable fire pit with the guard around it, but then you might go down a different path because the guard might lead you to a different keyword or a different product now you’re going down another rabbit hole. So it’s really cool what you can do once you start thinking about it. Camping games, activities there we go. Renee, nailed it. Airbnb, there you go Sharon. You can go camping and just have to do it at an Airbnb instead.
Sharon 57:34
Do you know how many products I’ve found that you can sell specifically to it like an Airbnb supply as well? Like for people who rent out their houses for Airbnb. They need all sorts of different things that they need to change every single day etc. Airbnb is also a great niche to look at. A camping garlic press. I see I’ll go and bring out a camping garlic press tomorrow.
Norman 58:06
Yeah, next thing you’re gonna hear is camping, what is it? Spatula? Silicone spatula. That was the common one. Alright Kels. Next question.
Kelsey 58:16
Okay, we are at one hour just to let you know.
Norman 58:20
Sharon, what time do you have to go?
Sharon 58:22
I’m good. I’ve got a coaching call in an hour and a half so long as you guys want me in.
Kelsey 58:27
Alright. We had some questions about Etsy. So Tim was asking, how do you fulfill Etsy and eBay via Amazon?
Sharon 58:36
So this is what I was saying in the beginning how I rely on Amazon multi channel fulfillment. So either through Amazon multi channel fulfillment, or you use a 3PL that fulfill for you, like deliver, for example and I don’t know any others. I’m sure you do Norm.
Norman 58:57
For me, if I was doing that, it would just be through a 3Pl.
Kelsey 59:04
Just a reminder, if you are interested in the 30 minute consult, tag two people to be entered. So it’s only for people that have not had a consultation before and for a box of chocolate, I believe it’s US only, correct?
Norman 59:21
Yep. It’s only in the US. Sorry.
Kelsey 59:22
You need to do #beardguy. So those are the two things we’re giving out today. Another Etsy one. How do you get around the handmade requirement on Etsy? Is it a requirement?
Sharon 59:38
I don’t think it’s a requirement anymore. You just need to be careful with Etsy. I don’t think it’s a requirement anymore. I think they did get rid of that. Yeah, I don’t think it is a thing anymore.
Kelsey 59:56
Okay. From Gil, if you have a brand with one product, what should the strategy be for finding the next one?
Sharon 1:00:04
Knowing who you’re selling your product to and what other products they want. I’d love to hear what Norman says.
Norman 1:00:12
I would just say, let’s say if you’ve got soap, for example. Well, let’s take the bath bomb. So you take the bath bombs, and then you could go wide on it like you were talking about before. So now you’ve got these gifts. Then from the bath bombs, you can either go wider into the bath bombs bigger or different ones, bath bombs with CBD, bath bombs with this and bath bombs with that. Or you could get into other beauty products that you could either gift set around. So you might be putting a block of soap into it. You might be putting some liquid soap into it. I would be looking at, especially with beauty, what you can combine as a gift set because not only would you have this on Amazon, it’s probably just too complicated. But I would look at probably having a couple products on Amazon that they’re great on Amazon, but when they get the products they have an insert that tells them to come on over to my website where they’re available for gift sets or subscription based products. So I just go wide on the product Yeah, that’s the easiest thing to do especially like for something in beauty
Sharon 1:01:24
Let’s also give a non beauty answer because I also rely heavily on beauty. So let’s also say another way to expand on your brand is if it’s not just to one specific buyer avatar Okay, so for example, one of my beauty brands, it’s specifically for mature women. Women over the age of 50 specifically need my products, it’s not for 20 year olds. So I know who my buyer avatar is. It’s just so easy to sell products to them because I know what they need right? But let’s just say you sell in decor okay? Let’s say you sell, I don’t know a decor product or how did you say it in Canada?
Norman 1:02:05
Decor.
Sharon 1:02:06
Okay let’s just say you’re selling a decor product. Let’s just say like you sell a bar wall hanging thing or whatever. You can look at the frequently bought with, you can look at your search term reports and see where you’re getting sales for other keywords and there’s many many ways to expand your brand and it really does depend in my opinion on your niche and where you’re selling and what it is that you’re selling. But that’s also frequently bought with and we used to be able to use Yasiv. Didn’t you love Yasiv Norm? Tell me you noon.Y A S I V, yasiv.com. What? You didn’t use Yasiv? Oh my God. It was like the best website in the world. It was like this spiderweb of products.
Norman 1:03:00
You’re just saying spider web by the way and I’ve got this massive spider going across my floorboard right now.
Sharon 1:03:11
Yasiv was a website, it was the best frickin website in the world. I made a YouTube video about it like a year ago or ages ago, more than a year ago and then they stopped working because Amazon took away the frequently bought with. The way that they worked back in the days you’d put in a product and then it would take history of Amazon’s frequently bought it worked and it will just show you the spider web of products to do with that product. It was like the best website in the world and then they stopped working. It doesn’t work anymore so sorry you can’t use that. But frequently bought with as well and I think that for me, the way that for me that I look at products expanding within my brand is because my brand building is so heavily around buyer avatar, that’s the way that I do it but if your product is not specifically just to one person then I would look at either other variations of it that you can bring out or around or like I said frequently bought with. Like you said, how you can make a bundle gift with other things etc. is a great way.
Norman 1:04:24
Yeah, very good. Kelsey, tell mom to come down and kill this big spider.
Kelsey 1:04:36
Okay, from Manny. Hi Sharon. But how do you get this feeling? What is a micro niche? What are signs that this micro niche is going to work besides keyword demand?
Sharon 1:04:50
Oh, it really depends. The first thing for me is the keyword demand and if I can find it being sold outside of Amazon, then it’s great and sometimes you just have to trial things and sometimes it’ll work and sometimes they won’t. I’ll give you an example. One of my things that I use as an example for the people in my product research course is, my starting point for finding a product was careers. I went into Google, I found the top 100 careers in America. One of them was nurses and then I went and learned I’m not a nurse. I don’t know any nurses and I had to go and learn everything there was to learn about nurses. Did you know Norm that nurses have to buy their own gear for everything? Oh, all of their gear they have to buy themselves. Their scrubs, the headset they wear, the badge. What do you call it? The badge reel and their stethoscope, the stethoscope case. Their clipboards, every single thing a nurse has, she has to buy herself. Did you know this?
Norman 1:06:12
I did not.
Sharon 1:06:13
Neither did I and I only knew it because I was doing product research. So I got into a whole bunch of different Facebook groups for nurses, and I watch YouTube videos about students who are nurses, etc and then I went on to Etsy, and I found this product for nurses that doesn’t exist on Amazon. But it sells really, really well on Etsy. I couldn’t find the exact search term for the product on Amazon, meaning not necessarily people buying it and searching for it. But there’s a very similar product not being sold. Targeted ad nurses, meaning there’s a broader product. Okay, let’s just use an example. This is not the product, but let’s just say it was a clipboard, okay. It’s not the product, but let’s just say it was a clipboard specifically for nurses, one that you could open up, put your phone in or whatever it may be and let’s just say it wasn’t sold on Amazon because no one had sold it on Amazon, but nurses need it. But it was being sold really, really well on Etsy. That is enough for me to order a couple 100 units and try it on Amazon. So the question was, how do we know that the niche is going to work? Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith and Norm is busy killing the spider guys, so I’ll just keep joking. Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith and sometimes you can get it right.
Kelsey 1:07:39
Yeah, he’ll be back.
Sharon 1:07:42
Go Norm.
Norman 1:07:45
I hate spiders.
Sharon 1:07:47
Is it still walking around there?
Norman 1:07:49
No, my wife just came in and murdered it.
Sharon 1:08:01
I was in Australia once and there was a huntsman spider, which is like this big. In my dad’s house, and it was terrible. So yeah, that was my answer to the question.
Norman 1:08:15
Okay. Kels, let’s take two more questions.
Kelsey 1:08:21
Okay. This is from Tony, are you guys still requesting reviews on Amazon? I just discontinued my follow up email from Helium 10 and I’m seeing a difference in the lack of reviews. He also asked if you’re still using Project X from Helium 10.
Sharon 1:08:38
I use Quantify Ninja which automatically clicks on the request for review button. That’s what I do and I don’t know what he means by do you still use Project X?
Norman 1:08:49
Oh, what do you think of Project X?
Sharon 1:08:55
Tim Jordan’s a friend of mine and I love Tim Jordan and I’m also and I also love Helium 10. But I also speak my mind, I think that it’s great on the one hand. On the other hand, I don’t believe in the PPC side of it. So what they do is they use the bids, right? They try to see what the bids are for the product and I think they bring in like 10 units, they try and see what the bids are for the product and then they can get an idea of what the bids will be for that product. The problem I have with that is that developing your product can take between, let’s say three to four months agreed. By the time you launch the product, who the hell says the bids will be the same? By the time you launch the product properly with the listings done correctly. You’ve got enough stock and are the bids gonna be the same? What the bids were four months ago, has not been what they’re going to be in four months from now. Right? Agreed?
Norman 1:09:58
Yeah, for sure.
Sharon 1:10:00
On that side of things, I don’t agree with it, because that’s the only thing I disagree with. Everything else, it’s nothing new to me. I’ve always been using Pinterest, etc to do it and I’m really against using softwares as a starting point. I don’t use parameters, I use creativity and I use things that are outside the box. So I think that it’s a great thing because they are using outside of Helium 10. But I also think that there’s certain things that there is no 100% and like I said, with bids, you can’t get an idea of what the bids are going to be like in six months from now. One of my products that I sell, which is an older product of mine, is a face sheet mask, like a face mask, that’s a face sheet mask, right and moisturizing face. A year ago, the word face mask did not mean what it means today. Right? So COVID also bought a whole bunch of new keywords that didn’t exist or or change the meaning of the keyword. Right?
Norman 1:11:10
I just thought of something because you had these moisturizing masks, you might have been or people who were selling those types of masks could have been targeted by the algorithm that said, Oh, they use the word mask and now it’s PPE. Did you ever see that?
Sharon 1:11:28
I didn’t get taken down. We did have to do a lot of changing though. We get taken down. No, we don’t. It’s the Korean Face sheet mask, we did have to draw a lot of changes. But like for PPC wise, none of none of the PPC is the same. It was what it was because keywords are totally different from what they used to mean and that’s it. That’s my truth. I don’t believe in using softwares as a starting point. I use softwares for keyword data and for other things, I don’t use it as a starting point.
Norman 1:12:00
Very good. What was the first part of that question Kels?
Sharon 1:12:04
Reviews.
Kelsey 1:12:06
Requesting reviews?
Norman 1:12:10
Yeah, we were using Sellerise. So Sellerise is very good. But like requesting reviews, or if you’re asking for reviews, other than just requesting, pressing the button and requesting, we don’t do anything other than that and usually what we’re finding, I don’t know if your listing is good within the niche. I don’t know Sharon, 4 to 7% might be an average for reviews.
Sharon 1:12:47
For us, I don’t know what the percentage is. But we used to get around one every 100 sales, something like that. It has gone up a lot since the request for review. Yeah, interesting cuz reviews have gone up a lot and feedback like a seller’s feedback has gone down a lot. Have you found that or not really?
Norman 1:13:12
So so. But over the year, I think what’s happened is everybody’s just been getting hit hard with every purchase that they bought on Amazon. So the feedback over the years has gone down. But anyways, feedback and reviews, I think have gone down a little bit. But if you’ve got a great product out there, we’re looking at around 4ish to 7ish percent. If you got a really crappy product, you’ll probably have a lot higher reviews, but there’ll be negative.
Sharon 1:13:48
We have a lot more ratings and reviews now.
Norman 1:13:52
Yes.
Sharon 1:13:53
So we have a lot more ratings. It’s interesting because when you sell beauty, reviews with images really matter for and afters and things like that and that’s actually gone down and there’s a lot more ratings now than what we used to. Well, obviously you didn’t have just ratings, but yeah, so that’s something that we’ve also found as well, but I think for us, I think it’s like more seven ish percent. Something like that.
Norman 1:14:26
Okay, so Kelsey, last question.
Kelsey 1:14:29
Last question. Let’s see where to go. This is an opinion question. I have a folding lightweight pet door insert that is frameless on the bottom to make it easy for old dogs and really short dogs and cats. I’m thinking of selling it in the travel industry or veterans for pets that have had surgery or bad hips. Would this be a good repurpose?
Sharon 1:15:02
Did you understand the question Norm?
Norman 1:15:04
I’ve seen the product.
Sharon 1:15:08
You can answer the question. I’m not getting it yet. I’m still gonna read it.
Norman 1:15:14
Okay, while Sharon’s reading it, I think it’d be a great product or repurpose for all sorts of different areas. So not only for Airbnb, for travel, something that’s portable that you can take with you. Yeah, that would be definitely something you could repurpose.
Sharon 1:15:37
I still don’t get what the product is. I have to understand it.
Norman 1:15:41
So the product’s really cool. So if you open up your door, you can slide this folding piece in between and it’s got a door where the dog can come in and out or whatever it is cat, dog. So it’s not something that’s actually attached. You can bring it with you.
Sharon 1:16:03
That’s genius. You should definitely sell it towards Airbnb and travel.
Norman 1:16:07
I know we’re talking about repurpose, but this is perfect for companies like Chewy. They would eat that up. So hopefully that answered your question. We both think that you can definitely repurpose it in different markets. But again, it’s just knowing your audience
Sharon 1:16:28
And finding the right keywords.. It’s a smart product. You just got to get in front of the right people.
Norman 1:16:34
Alright, Sharon. We’re wrapping it up. Wow. An hour and 15 minutes. Okay, now it comes down to the draw. Kelsey.
Kelsey 1:16:46
Give me a second screen. Alright, so let’s see. So this is for the consultation with Sharon. So 321
Norman 1:17:02
These are all non winners.
Norman 1:17:04
Yes. Okay. So the winner is Laura.
Norman 1:17:11
Alright. Congrats, Laura. So Kelsey, how do we get that information over to you?
Kelsey 1:17:17
So you can email me at k@lunchwithnorm.com or if you just want a Facebook message me too, that’s always good and for the chocolates, a second giveaway. Here we go. So for the chocolates. Let’s see who it is. Victoria.
Norman 1:17:48
Perfect. Alright. So Victoria, just get your information over to Kelsey, and just email him at k@lunchwithnorm.com and we’ll get that gift off to us well, and also. So the 30 minute consultation. That’ll be great. Alright, you’re off the hook. Done.
Sharon 1:18:09
That was awesome. Thanks for having me.
Norman 1:18:11
It was a blast having you on the show. We’ll have to have you on again.
Sharon 1:18:15
I’m here whenever you want. I’ll come on.
Norman 1:18:18
Next time, I’ll be able to think. I won’t be full of Benadryl or whatever.
Sharon 1:18:23
No, no problem. As you can tell, I’m good at talking so I can continue to talk.
Norman 1:08:30
You’re awesome at talking.
Sharon 1:18:32
It’s part of my problem. I know.
Norman 1:18:35
Oh, well. We will talk to you soon. Sharon. Thanks a lot for being on.
Sharon 1:18:40
Thank you.
Norman 1:18:42
Alright everybody. That’s the end of the show. Hope you enjoyed it. We run these podcasts every Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays at noon, Eastern Standard Time. There goes that Benadryl again. Kelsey, why don’t you come on.
Kelsey 1:18:57
Alright, so as you guys are all filtering out of here, make sure you go over to the Facebook group and get inside. We stream to the Facebook group, two Facebook pages, YouTube and LinkedIn. So the Facebook group is a great area to ask any of those questions that you may have been missed. Yes, smash the like button and hit the shares, ring the bell, subscribe to us on YouTube. But yeah, if we ever missed any questions, it’s not because we don’t like you. It’s just we don’t have time and maybe we missed it. So if you ask it in the Facebook group, or just want an opinion and just want to get to know the other people here, I know a lot of people are actually like talking to each other now and making some friendships, which is always great to see. So it’s Lunch with Norm Amazon FBA and eCommerce Collective where you can find that. You just have to answer three questions, super easy. We just want to know a little more about what you’re doing on Amazon or Ebay or Shopify, and that’s it.
Norman 1:20:01
Yeah we are having Christmas at noon so Lunch with Norm. We’re doing at noon, Eastern Standard Time and Shane Oglow is going to be on.
Kelsey 1:20:12
Yeah. So same time, Christmas Day, be here and enjoy and if we miss you, if you guys are doing having a Christmas day off, have Lunch with Norm, or we hope you’re having a great time and you get to celebrate with your loved ones and Merry Christmas everyone
Norman 1:20:32
Have a Merry Christmas, everybody and that’s it for today’s show. So thanks a lot everybody for joining and thanks a lot for being so engaged with the podcast as well as with the group and just enjoy the rest of your day. We’ll see you later.
