How to Use Credit Cards to Pay for Inventory

Looking to take your Amazon sales to the next level? In this SSP episode, we got Kseniia Reidel back on the show, and she reveals how she 10X’d her 2021 sales in 2022! Thanks to free Amazon-selling learning resources like Project X and Freedom Ticket, she was able to start her own Amazon FBA business.

Kseniia also shared the tough challenges she had to face and the big wins she had along the way. Plus, you’ll get to hear about how she rewards herself and her family for growing her business to almost $1 Million in gross sales. Do you have the same goals of success for your Amazon FBA business? Make sure to tune in for some valuable advice and actionable strategies from a successful Amazon seller!

In episode 441 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kseniia discuss:

• 01:39 – Did Kseniia Reach Her Goals For 2022?
• 03:07– A 3PL’s Mistake Gave Her Challenges
• 09:17– Bradley’s Solution If This Happens To You
• 11:11 – How Did Kseniia Reach 2x Her Original 2022 Goal
• 13:08 – Talking About Patents And IP
• 15:39 – Finding Product Ideas In Facebook Groups
• 17:02 – How To Combine Project X Strats With The FB Group Strategy
• 23:55 – From $250K To $1M, What Has Changed?
• 25:44 – How Did Kseniia Reward Herself?
• 26:40 – Kseniia’s Hobbies & Recretion Outside The Amazon Grind?
• 27:14 – “I Almost Got Eaten By A Lion”
• 29:59 – How The New Insights Dashboard Can Help Her Business
• 33:50 – Launch Strategies That She Is Currently Using
• 35:46 – Kseniia’s 60-Second Tips
• 37:41 – Her Business Goals This 2023

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we’ve got a seller back on the show who was able to 10x what she did in 2021 last year. And that’s thanks to using some Project X strategies, but also combining that with looking in Facebook groups for new products. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Wanna check estimated sales for products you see on Amazon? Or maybe you want to instantly see how many listings on page one of a search term result? Have the actual search keyword in the title. You can find all of these things out and more with the Helium 10 Chrome extension tool Xray. More than 1 million people have used this tool. Find out what it can do for you by downloading it for free at h10.me/xray, h10.me/xray. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we’ve got serious seller back with us on the show. So if you guys want to check out her full backstory about how she started on eBay and failed with her first product and learned from Project X and Freedom Ticket after that, make sure go to h10.me/320. But Kseniia, it’s great to have you back here. How’s it going?

Kseniia:

Hi. Good, how are you

Bradley Sutton:

Now we were just talking offline about your recent travels to Africa where you almost got eaten by a lion. I heard lions like Russian food a lot over there, but we’ll get back to that a little bit because we also talk on this show nowadays about like what people do in their spare time. And actually my thing is travel, which is why I always include my intro, something about travel for the videos and stuff. But anyways, let’s first just talk about business anyways. And you know, it was about, I wanna say like a year, year and a half the last time you were on the show. So catch me up. How did you end 2022? I think you had given me a goal. Hold on. You probably don’t remember what you told me. Let me look at my notes here. What Mel said you were you were, you had launched your first product, you were looking for a second one or another one, and you were looking to try and get to half a million dollars last year. So were you able to reach that goal?

Kseniia:

Yes, almost doubled it. I think it was like 960,000 by the end of the year

Bradley Sutton:

So that goal, that was too conservative of a goal, I guess. Doubled it. Almost a million dollars for the year. All right. Talk to me about it. So like, was the, the second product also in the same niche? Did it sell more than your first product? Walk me through your 2022.

Kseniia:

Yes. Well all my products are in the same niche and I think last time when I talked to you was at the Prosper show last year, and then I told you a story when the 3PL messed up the shipment.

Bradley Sutton:

Tell me about that again or tell everybody about that.

Kseniia:

Yeah, so what happened is that well so my first product was successful. I found the second one, I just launched it. And that was around March when I launched the second product. And like a couple of weeks after I launched the second product, that was reason 3PL cause, there were still issues with the storage limits. So they send my second product to the shipping plan of the first product. I don’t know how they did that because it’s totally different packagings. It’s not even a variation it’s a different product. And I already had another shipment ready in China for that first product and I was like, what am I supposed? And that’s why I came to you and I was like, what am I supposed to be doing right now? Because I have no idea.

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find it out again? Like how did you realize what had happened?

Kseniia:

They realized after they shifted, I think before I got to Amazon, they emailed me. It’s like, oh, I think we made a mistake. And I was like, what mistake?

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So that’s kind of good. It was before it went live. Okay. And they’re like our bad. How did you end up? What did you end up doing?

Kseniia:

Well, I first closed all the listings cuz I was like, okay, let me think about it cuz I don’t wanna I don’t want ’em started receiving cause it’s not even a different color variation, it’s a different product. So I was like, let me see what’s happening with it. And then I started talking to different people and know I talked to you. And that was like a week after that happened and I talked to other people and nobody knew exactly what Amazon was gonna do cause it’s not like it’s happens often. And so I just decide to remove all the first product from Amazon I decided to remove, I think it was around a thousand units cuz I wasn’t sure if they’re just gonna relabel it and send the wrong product.

Bradley Sutton:

So all the first product and the second product you had to remove because you didn’t?

Kseniia:

No, I knew that they shipped second product for the shipment plan of the first product. So I knew that the second product is fine, it’s not messed up. But the first one was, and I didn’t know what Amazon was gonna do with it. I didn’t know if, if they’re gonna relabel it or if they’re just gonna, and what ended up happening is that when I removed everything, cuz I removed some to my house, so I removed some 3PL and it de it was depending on the warehouse, so some of them treated it so scanned it right and put it on a right shelf. But then some boxes I received when they relabeled it. So on one product there was a FNSKU of another product. So they relabeled it the wrong way. So it wouldn’t been a mess if I wouldn’t remove it all. I’m glad I did it.

Bradley Sutton:

And at that point, how much was that first one selling that, one like per day that you had to stop it?

Kseniia:

I think it was doing 40,000 a month. So what was it?

Bradley Sutton:

So basically every day you’re losing over a thousand dollars because of this?

Kseniia:

Yeah. And I already had a shipment in China, a little being inspected that week for that first product. And I was like, well how am I supposed to be shipping it now cuz I have to remove everything? So I ended up creating a new listing, but then I merged them. I did it as a variation so I don’t lose the reviews. At the same time when I’m removing the first one already, like relaunched under a new listing with the new shipment that I got from China. So I was a total mess. You know me? Having the first success with second product and being so happy and there’s this huge thing comes in that literally like stops everything.

Bradley Sutton:

So then how long did it take for everything to get all right? You sent back the inventory. They checked one by one, relabeled it, got it back to Amazon. Like how long from the time that you realized this problem had happened to now product one and product two are back in Amazon and everything is going again.

Kseniia:

I think three to four months probably. I don’t remember.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh my goodness. Wow. Yeah. That took a long time.

Kseniia:

Well cause they don’t remove it by batches. They removed it by sometimes they would get one unit in a box, sometimes they would get two units in a box. Yeah. So, and in 3PL ended up even charge. They didn’t wanna redo it for free. They were like, well, we’re gonna have to charge you because we get like 2000 boxes here or more in that or whatever. We’re gonna have to charge you.

Bradley Sutton:

I hope you fought that right since it was their problem at the first place?

Kseniia:

Well, I did. It was so stressful. It lasted with them. I’ve been discussing I was talking to an owner for, for a long time because I was like, guys, you did this, you know how much money I lost because of you. So, and then you want me to pay more? And their point was, they wanted me just to wait. They’re like, oh, just wait until we remove everything and then you can start selling. I was like, it’s gonna take three or four months for me to wait. I can’t wait. I need to do a new listing and relaunch with the same boxes but under different listing.

Bradley Sutton:

So basically what you did was that one SKU you kind of had to permanently, or not permanently, but at least a hundred percent close since you never know how many was still left. And then you started another SKU for the same listing so that it would had a different so that it had a different fnSKU, right?

Kseniia:

Yes. And I merged them, so I would have the reviews, so that way it will technically, it’s a different SKU aslo.

Bradley Sutton:

So you actually made a new ASIN, not just a new SKU?

Kseniia:

Yeah, so I made a new ASIN and I made them as variations. Like I put it in like a size variation, so that way it still keeps all the reviews and now actually, because then I had another issue with the same product and now I’m actually using the first listing for the actual variation. So I’m still keeping all the reviews.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, interesting. Because I think another option for people who something like that might happen is you did, you know what you did was right, you closed the listing because you don’t want any of , don’t know which one was contaminated units or, or units that, that had the wrong sticker on it. But another thing that somebody could do is under the same ASIN, just create a new SKU and then send an inventory because when you create a new SKU, it, it creates a new fnSKU. And then you don’t have to worry about merging or reviews or anything like that. And then you also don’t have to worry about you know, ones of that original you know, FNSKU getting out. Right. You know, the theoretically speaking. But the way you did it is probably a little bit safer, but just a little bit harder. So three, four months, were you able to regain that momentum on the first product or being out of stock for so long and having the listing closed? Did you lose ground to competitors or what happened?

Kseniia:

Oh, I never used that listing from the one I had to close since I started selling a couple of weeks after it happened under a new ASIN, I was still fine because I still didn’t have too much competition. And when I started, I was a second person selling that product and by the time it happened I was still like, I was still the second, still nobody showed up. Couple of months later though, I got a lot of Chinese sellers that copied exactly what I was selling, but at that point it was fine. So.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Now how was it that you were able to pretty much like four x what you did the previous year and even double your original goal, like which product took off so well that exceeded your expectation? Was it that first one or was it the second one? Or did you launch a third one?

Kseniia:

Well in total right now have four products with variations. So it’s eight SKUs in total, but one actually launched this year. So I ended up last year with six SKUs. It was the second product that took off more. But also what happened when I launched the second product and after I had to relaunch the first product, I got a bunch of the Chinese copycats. I covered exactly the same of my first product and you know, they just dropped the price. And so I started losing a lot of sales because of that. So I had to redesign it, I had to redesign the first product that way it’s a bit different. And I was able to file the design patent on both of those products. So I still don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get it, but I file it that way.

Bradley Sutton:

So did you put patent pending on the listing?

Kseniia:

Yes I did. It didn’t stop though. Some people because on my second product that ended up being like the best seller of all my products, by the end of the year, like by the end of the summer, I would say I got like two or three people who copied exactly the same, the product, even the pictures. And I think they just copied my listing, like the bullet points and everything. So I, the first time I was able to remove them because I copyright the listing. So Amazon removed them the first time, but then the second time they relaunched a couple of months later, they were a little smarter, so they just rephrased my listing. They didn’t copy it word per word, so they rephrased it a little bit. So now I can’t do anything about them. They’re still there and until I get a patent I can’t remove them.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now how much did you pay for the patent? You said it’s two different patents you got or just one?

Kseniia:

Yeah, two.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you use Rich Goldstein or you had somebody else that you used for that?

Kseniia:

No, I had somebody else. My husband is a lawyer actually, and he recommended me an IP lawyer that he knew. So yeah, so we kind of knew him. I think the first one I did it actually had to do with before I launched the second product, so I was kind of a guess, I was hoping that it will be the main seller because you’re not allowed to file a patent if the product is already launched. So when I reached out to the lawyer, I’m glad, like it was already on Amazon, but I haven’t started selling it yet. And they told me, do not start selling it because you’re not allowed to until you file a patent. So I think the first patent was around I would say like 7,000, probably seven or eight, because they had to do search because the first product that they did, it was a bit like not too unique, I would say design. So they wanted to make sure that it’s, it will go through. So they had to pay an agency, couple of thousand for the search to make sure that there are no product, I knew there are no products like that with exact same design, but they just wanted to make sure for them

Bradley Sutton:

That. But then the way you calculated it was like, Hey, yeah, this is expensive, $7,000, but you know, you’re gonna make that up in more sales once you’re able to kick those other sellers off. Is that kind of like why you were okay with paying that much money?

Kseniia:

Yeah, well, because I already learned on my first product that three, four months later after I start selling in the Chinese copycats, they see that there are sales and they’re gonna show up with a price that almost 30-40% less than I’m selling. So that’s why I had to redesign the first product, because that would happen. Because at the same time, there’s like five sellers came in with exact the same product as I was selling. Yeah. That’s why I lost a lot of sales because of them. So I learned that before I launch a second product, I need to go and apply for a patent. Yeah. And I knew that it’s probably not gonna stop some people it’s not gonna stop a lot of people. There’s still gonna be some copycats, but it weren’t as many as with the first product because I put the patent pending on the listing.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Cool. Cool. Now, what are some other good things that happened? You know, like now we’ve been talking about copycat people and problems with your 3PL. So let’s give some people some, some good stories from, from last year. You know, some successes, something that worked out really well for you.

Kseniia:

Well, what worked out is going back to my favorite Facebook groups is we talked about it where I found the ideas because I used the Facebook groups and all my start from the first product and then to all the other product I launched, all the ideas I got from the Facebook groups. So what happened is that, because it’s a community of probably 20 or 30,000 people. It’s not my Facebook group, but it’s a Facebook group of the people who use the product, since I’m selling accessories as a product. So it’s like, oh, if I’m selling like a case for an iPhone, so that’s like an iPhone user group for example. And I see sometimes they talk to each other, oh, that would be so cool to have this product. And I was like, okay. And I constantly read the groups, I see what they’re talking about, what they wanna see, and I was like, okay.

Kseniia:

And I see like a hundred people wanting the same product and I go on Amazon, I don’t see it, and then, then I go to like Etsy or something like that and there is like a handmade version of that product. And I was like, well, I think that’s a pretty good idea. Even though there were no, like with, I think with my third product, there were no exactly search terms on Amazon for that, for that exact product. But I saw people in Facebook group that wanted that product. So I kind of risked a little bit with that. And but I knew, I saw people literally asking for it. And I was like, okay, let’s see.

Bradley Sutton:

So like almost all your products, you kind of did use the Project X strategy of searching off of Amazon for the demand. You just kind of enhanced it further because that’s not something that we did, we, we didn’t think about looking at Facebook groups. But let’s talk about that a little. Let’s talk about somebody else. You know, you already have your strategy down, but like, let’s say somebody else is out there, maybe they don’t have a product yet, they don’t have a niche. How would you suggest to them to find, first of all, Facebook groups around different niches? Or do they need to pick a niche first and then try to find the Facebook groups in order to, to see the ideas?

Kseniia:

Well, I picked the niche first cuz I knew I wanna be in a certain category just because I wanted to have something that I use. And I understand cuz I knew that I’m not gonna be able to tell, if this is a good product or a bad product if I don’t use it, or if I don’t know how to use it or if I don’t understand like, I don’t know sports, so I’m not gonna go in like sports category or something like that. So I found niche first. And when I started using the Project X strategies to find the first product, the keywords, not the product, the keywords. I started down with like two or three categories and when I found it. So when I found the category, then I started going to Facebook group. So like, I would say probably try to look by the things that you’re interested in, because you’re gonna have to spend a lot of time, like I spend a lot of time reading what people say, what they think. And if you’re totally not interested in that category, in that niche, you’re just not gonna do it.

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on a second though, because I mean I used to do Facebook groups like all day, every day, 10 years ago like in search. But I have, I literally now that I’m thinking about it, I literally have not like, looked for random Facebook groups in probably 10 years. So let’s pretend it’s the Project X I’m in the coffin shelf niche. How do I look for Facebook groups? What do I do? I just use the search bar and just type in like a general theme, like gothic decor and then use that filter for groups that, but like, will will just, does that mean the groups that come up it has to have the gothic decor in the title or related groups will also come up in that kind of search?

Kseniia:

Well, I would try with the, like a smaller group that like super oriented in what you’re doing. Like if it’s a goffin shop, go to a gothic decor and it’s, it might be small groups, like 10 or 20,000 people. It doesn’t need to be like a million. Cause the smallers are usually more active. And I think what also helped me is it needs to be, you open a group and you see is it active? Are people posting there every day? You know, there’s actually stuff going on or it’s just totally dead. And it also works with the things that people are very passionate about. So the product that I’m selling, the actual product, not my accessories, but the actual product people are like super passionate about the product. So they’re constantly discussing and with my product, what happened is that, so I’ll tell later I have a launch product now, but some people just buy it and they post it on the group. So every day I open, I see people, oh, we bought this of Amazon and I’m like, cool, that’s my product, so I don’t even need to do anything because people are passionate about that. And especially since they wanted like a certain product for a while and then they finally got it and they’re like, okay, oh cool, we’re waiting for this product for a long time. So like, they keep posting and then people, people in common start oh, where’d you get this? And they start sharing links and stuff. And

Bradley Sutton:

So, so then how you got the idea for your product was just from reading, like just going back and just sitting there and reading and then people just said, Hey, I wish somebody, or I wish there was a product like this, but I can’t find it, or something like that?

Kseniia:

Yes, exactly. Just like that.

Bradley Sutton:

And are you interacting at all? Like are you making posts in there or, or like asking questions or anything like that? Or what, what are you doing?

Kseniia:

Yeah, so what I started doing, well the first, what I started doing with the second product, I again, I saw it there, what people use. And I decided to add something to my product and add a QR code so I can start building the email list. And so I have something that cost me like 50 cents and I put a QR code and I was able, not too many people, but I think I have around seven or 800 subscribers right now. So what I do now when I launch is that I first do the email list email when I launch a new product saying like, oh, I launched this new product and I get, I mean maybe like I got a hundred sales out of 700 subscribers on the first couple of days of when I launched the product.

Kseniia:

So that was pretty good, I think. And also what I do, I make a post in the Facebook group. So I say, oh look what I got off Amazon and I post a product picture of course a good product picture showing how good the product is and, I guess I don’t say that I make this product, but since I’m also a user, I also generally use this product. I use my own products too. I use my own products too, so yeah. I made comments and it was funny because last product that I launched when I did that post about my product and the Facebook group, the guy who started the main, the Facebook group, and actually the c e o of the company that started the main product Yeah. That I’m selling accessories to, he commented from his personal Facebook account that, oh, you know what, we’re coming with the same product couple of months later he was like,

Bradley Sutton:

So he was one of your competitors?

Kseniia:

Well yeah, they started selling similar products to mine, yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Interesting. So what’s a big difference going like a quarter of a million to almost a million, what have you had to do differently? Like, have you hired help? You know, do you have virtual assistances working for you? You’re still handling everything by yourself is your husband helping what’s going on?

Kseniia:

Still me just a lot more hours now and a lot more I guess just the feeling of responsibility is totally different because in 2021 I did little bit over a hundred thousand.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, I was saying a quarter of a million. So you’re almost 10x

Kseniia:

Now. It’s 10x. Yeah 10x. So I mean, the first time when I had actually placed an order for inventory for like 50,000, I was like I’ve never seen a 50,000 on my bank account before, like when I need, and I needed them one time to spend that much money. It’s just psychologically, I guess hard to manage that amount that was the hardest. Also, because it escalated very fast in a couple of months it went from being like five or $10,000 to like 50 or 60 or 70. That was like, cause I was scared at one point. I was like, what if something goes wrong? And I would get stuck with all this a hundred thousand dollars bill from the supplier.

Bradley Sutton:

Have you started taking money out or everything that you’re making, you’re still putting back into the business?

Kseniia:

No, I start paying myself. Actually, my biggest mistake that I made last year is, was with the bookkeeping because the beginning of the year I didn’t know what’s the amount will be of the how much I will sell. You know, I didn’t know I’m gonna end up with almost a million, so I didn’t have a bookkeeper. And by then, end of the year, by like November, okay, well it looks like my like 700,000 by November. So I think I need to hire someone. So the only person I had to hire is a bookkeeper that told me that I’m gonna end up paying a lot of taxes because I didn’t have the right structure of the company because I didn’t expect that I will make so much.

Bradley Sutton:

You’re profitable I’m assuming.

Kseniia:

Yes, yes.

Bradley Sutton:

What, what’s activities, what’s something that you’ve done to reward yourself with your newfound earnings? Did you buy yourself a car or something like that?

Kseniia:

No, no, I didn’t. I don’t pay myself too much. Well, when on pretty nice vacation, I guess in January. But rather than that, no, I like to travel. That’s the main, the main thing. We travel a lot, like we spend the whole summer in Latin America. We’re still working, but still working every day but at least we can because we both work from home so we can travel and that’s what we do. I think that’s the main thing. I don’t really care about like, buying cars or something like that.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Let’s talk about that. We’ll, we’ll get back to the Amazon strategies, but you know, I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with the podcast, but maybe you’ve noticed this year, I always ask the guests now, Hey, what are you doing for your mental health, physical health? And I talk about mine. What I do is I like traveling. That’s why we always have different intros here. But sounds like your thing for hobbies and recreation is also travel. Would that be your like, number one hobby, would you say?

Kseniia:

Yes. That’s definitely, I know my husband’s always laughing at me because usually, what I do is we’re on a trip and I already start booking another one while I’m not even back from the one that we’re on. And he’s always like, when is it gonna stop? And I was like, I don’t think it’s gonna stop, it’s not gonna stop. So used to that, well, sometimes I go alone, sometimes he wants to go and he doesn’t want to go. I go with friends or I go alone. So it doesn’t really matter.

Bradley Sutton:

Now speaking of that trip in January, tell us about what your life flashed before your eye. Thinking you’re gonna get eaten by lion king.

Kseniia:

Yeah, I was just telling you that we’re on a safari and we got very close to a lion that apparently was very hungry because it starts circling around our car and licking her lips and kind of looking at me like my dinner, my dinner is here, a couple of Americans here in the car. So yeah, that was scary,

Bradley Sutton:

But that’s the kind of experience that maybe you wouldn’t have had before Amazon or Maybe it would’ve happened to have a lot later. What else is on the bucket list for travel for you guys?

Kseniia:

Well, I’m going to Central Asia next month. And I think also to, I’m going to Istanbul and I mean the place I really wanna go to, it’s Antarctica, but I dunno when that’s gonna happen because a, you don’t really have a good internet connection and I can’t stop working it’s still, I’m not, I’m not gonna be mentally normal when I can’t control every day what’s happening cuz and even in Africa I still worked for several hours a day, but there like sometimes it might be, you don’t have internet connection, you don’t have wifi or something like that. So I was like, I can’t do that.

Bradley Sutton:

Well,  that’s a good segue to get back to Amazon. So thinking about that where you can’t since like you said, you’re trying to handle everything by yourself, you can’t really take a day off or, or take a few days off be. So have you thought about that? Like are you gonna try and maybe hire somebody remotely or something like that to help in the future?

Kseniia:

I don’t know. I mean, I, I think about it. I mean, it’s kind of easy right now since I have a bookkeeper, so at least I don’t need to handle that part. I have a lot of freelancers and I have a pretty good list of a checklist of how I launch products, how I prepare launching products. So I do exactly the same thing every time with have freelancers, the same people that I’ve worked with for like, over two years right now. So the same photographer, the same editor. So I kind of know what the result I’m gonna get, so I’m sure and what’s gonna happen. So that makes it easier. But yeah, I don’t know, I’m just, I guess I’m kind of used to not having days off like normal people.

Bradley Sutton:

But you do have freelancers and stuff, so, so that, that’s a start. That’s a start. Have you seen the new Insights dashboard on your Helium 10 dashboard when you log in, like a completely new interface?

Kseniia:

No, I think I had issues with logging in because of that because I think it was updating a couple of, like a week ago or so. Okay. I couldn’t log in and then I didn’t go back to it after that.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So I mean by the time this episode comes out, I’m sure you would’ve seen it, but basically what it is is kind of like this new dashboard that everybody has access to who has either the old diamond or the new scale, your business plan. But what it does is it’s a little bit, it’s almost like a virtual assistant because it’s, it’s bringing, it’s taking actions and like just giving you the results. So like some people check their keyword ranks every day, right? So instead of that, we’re gonna like, let you know like, hey, this keyword dropped in organic rank. Hey this, this product, this keyword dropped in sponsor rank. You know, some people are monitoring their PPC like once a week instead of that now all of a sudden you’re gonna get a message, Hey, did you know that you spent 60 clicks and $30 on this keyword and you didn’t get any sales we suggest pausing it.

Bradley Sutton:

So it’s kind of like taking actions that maybe you do normally or you hire somebody to do and then we kind of do it in the background and just deliver the results. So with that in mind, and I know you haven’t seen it yet, what would be on your wishlist? Like what is something that in Helium 10 or Seller Central you find that you are doing daily or weekly or biweekly that you would like to see automated? Like if you could just snap your finger in and boom, it’s gonna appear in this new Insights dashboard. Can you think of anything that comes to mind that would save you a lot of time?

Kseniia:

Well, the most I guess I struggle with is the inventory management. And I know there is a way to track it, but I don’t find it very easy to use I guess for me. I don’t know because it’s not, maybe I’m not putting a direct data in, I don’t know what’s happening, but I don’t see, it’s, don’t see it as like very reliable cause the sales changing months to months. But I think that’s the communications that I would like to get.

Bradley Sutton:

That one’s actually already there, but if you don’t have it set up, like you said, if you don’t have it set up right in the inventory management, then it’s not gonna give you the right information. Like we have different algorithms that can actually even track your seasonality if you’ve been selling for more than a year and then tell you like, oh yeah, hey, you’re probably gonna need to order more so you and I should schedule another call offline and then I’ll show you how to do that. But absolutely that, that’s one of the things in Inside Dashboard. What else are you doing regularly? Like something you just mentioned, something that, ah, man, you feel like you could do better on, but what is something that, hey, like this is just my routine, this is what I always do. Either in Seller Central or Helium 10.

Kseniia:

Well, I mean the PPC and I tried doing off Amazon advertising like Google ads didn’t really work for me. So I just do only PPC and since I launched a lot with the email lists and the Facebook groups, that’s makes it easier also. I, it’s not about like doing daily, but I guess it’s about just the way I launched and prepare for products. You know, it’s a list of things I do before I launch. You know, how to send the samples, do like a photographer make a list of the, the instruction, how to take pictures for the photographer. Cuz I usually send them the detailed list of how I want the pictures to be taken, what angles. Cuz I usually do pretty detailed research about what works, what doesn’t works in my niche. So they usually know what exactly to do when they’re taking pictures for my product.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Are you planning to launch anymore soon?

Kseniia:

Yeah, I have one that will be launched. They’re gonna start manufacturing it I think next week. So I mean hopefully in like two months that would be launched. And another one I’m working on right now.

Bradley Sutton:

What, what’s your current strategy that’s been working for like getting to page one on your main keywords and what you’re planning to do for this next product that’s about to come out?

Kseniia:

Well the first thing I that I do is the Vine reviews. That’s the first thing I do you, I usually give away around I think 30 units. That was the maximum that I could do. And I usually get about 15 reviews, 15 to 20 reviews probably from that. Then what I think works the best for me is, of course I do PPC start from start from where I launch. But what gives the most is when I do the email list and I get sales from the day one and usually it’s a lot of sales cuz people start clicking on the email and they start buying and Amazon sees this as like an outside traffic usually, I also use the fill links there to, so that way I get some sale on the, the fees when I do the my invoice.

Bradley Sutton:

What about Amazon attribution? I wonder if that would work.

Kseniia:

That’s what I’m talking about. So for Amazon it looks like, okay, this is this new product that’s been launched today and somehow people start buying it from day one without any reviews and it’s coming from outside of Amazon. So for them it looks like, oh wow and the same one I do when I post the link to the product and the Facebook group. I also use the Amazon the Amazon attribution. Yeah. I guess called. Cool.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Well just like we did last time we have this the 60-second tip. So what’s a 60-second tip or strategy, something that you haven’t mentioned that you think that you’re doing that’s kind of unique that you think other sellers should do? I mean, you talk a lot about unique things today, Facebook groups and email lists and things like that, but what’s something else that you haven’t talked about today?

Kseniia:

Well I think I actually saw the tip here on a podcast, I think it was a couple of years ago and I started using it is about the travel hacking, the credit cards. I just, I think that a lot of people not using it and it just kinda like, I don’t understand why people not using it because when, so last year when I had to start buying a lot of inventory, I didn’t get any loans, but I had to use a lot of credit cards. And when I opened the right credit card I have three times points on the ad spend. I had to buy inventory with the credit cards because when I went from $10,000 to $70,000 sales a month, I need to get money from somewhere for sales not to stop. So I had to lose a lot of credit cards so that way I earned a lot of points. So when we went on a trip–

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on, hold on. Did your suppliers accept credit card or how, how did you know, cuz most suppliers need like wire transfers, but how did you use a different service or how did you use credit card to pay for your inventory?

Kseniia:

I just had to ask them to do the Alibaba, they just had it through Alibaba. So I had to pay for the inventory through Alibaba, but for the forwarder I had to pay with the just the wire transfer.

Bradley Sutton:

Ok, that makes sense.

Kseniia:

Separated and that was fine.

Bradley Sutton:

And then you said you got a lot of points because of that helped you to be able to get business class then?

Kseniia:

Yeah. Yeah. So our trip that we went to in January, that was fully business class and you know, for ticket going there, we paid like $5 and the rest was paid in miles for United first class flight of like 16 hours or something like that. So that was solely because of the points that I earned with my business

Bradley Sutton:

Now what’s, what’s 2023 gonna be do you have a goal of what you’re gonna hit and also are you gonna launch in any other marketplaces like Walmart or Shopify or anything like that?

Kseniia:

No, I’m not planning launch on new marketplaces. I think for now I’m just gonna stay on Amazon just because of product. I sell it not really for like the Walmart type of people who shop there, it’s more for Amazon. My goal is, what I’m really trying to work on right now is a brand, so I’m trying to add the brand story right now. The pictures I decided to take my pictures and tell the brand story of how the brand started. So I think that can separate me a lot from the Chinese copycat cuz they usually don’t do that and I think there’s gonna be more trust. Cuz a couple months ago I started recognizing that people started actually typing in the brand name on Amazon. So there started being a search for the brand name. So I was like, well that’s good. That means that’s where I need to go. Yeah. Because they started recognizing me in that niche.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. All right, well Kseniia it was has been great you know, catching up with you. You know, congrats on all your success and, and let’s see, who knows last time you doubled what your goal. So, so let’s see in 2024 when we bring you back on, let’s see how you’re doing. Remember guys, it all started, she learned completely from Project X and Freedom Ticket and now she’s flying business class to Africa to get eaten by lions and living her best life. So you know, you never know what you can get from free education out there. So we look forward to having you on the show again and wish you the best success for the rest of these year.

Kseniia:

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.