Exploring Trust Issues in Timu and Amazon's Innovations

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Amazon to let TikTok users shop select products without leaving the video app
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4137470-amazon-to-let-tiktok-users-shop-select-products-without-leaving-the-video-app-report 

UK TikTok Shop fees rise to 9% from September
https://channelx.world/2024/08/uk-tiktok-shop-fees-rise-to-9-from-september/

Temu, Shein and Aliexpress are attracting US customers in their millions
https://www.techradar.com/pro/temu-shein-and-aliexpress-are-attracting-us-customers-in-their-millions-poll-shows-and-thats-despite-the-fact-that-the-vast-majority-do-not-trust-these-online-chinese-retailers-in-the-first-place

Plan your agenda for Amazon Accelerate 2024
https://sell.amazon.com/blog/accelerate-agenda-builder

Lastly, get ready for Amazon Accelerate 2024 with tips on making the most out of this event by planning your agenda for the conference. Also don’t forget to join us for the Elite Workshop in Seattle. Don't miss out on these game-changing insights on the latest episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10!

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:

• 00:58 - Shop Amazon ON TikTok!
• 03:21 - Amazon Holiday Fee Increase
• 05:26 - TikTok Fee Increase
• 06:06 - Temu / Shein Growing
• 07:45 - FBA Grade and Resell
• 08:29 - Kia Soul Delivery
• 09:58 - Amazon Accelerate Agenda
• 11:06 - Q3 Elite Workshop
• 12:01 - Pro Training Tip: Revamped Keyword Sales Estimation

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► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft

► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos

Bradley Sutton:

You're going to be able to run Amazon ads on TikTok and users are going to be able to purchase from Amazon directly from TikTok. Amazon has increased its fees for fulfillment in Q4. These stories and more, on this week's Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings-ons and news stories that are going on the Amazon, TikTok shop and e-commerce world and we give you training tips of the week, as well as let you know what new Helium 10 features will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let's go ahead and hop into the news. We don't have as much quantity wise as stories as last week. We had a record 14, but we've got some bangers here today, so let's get into the first article. It's actually from seekingalpha.com. I don't think I've ever quoted that news website, but look at this. This is a doozy, guys. If it is what this article says, it is, but it says Amazon is going to let TikTok users shop select products without leaving the video app, all right. So what does that mean? Sounds like it's just what it says. It says Amazon is teaming up with TikTok to enable e-commerce shopping on the short content video app. All right, so this is actually citing an Amazon spokesperson. So it's supposedly now TikTok users can buy items from Amazon ads that are going to be run inside of TikTok. So they're scrolling TikTok not necessarily TikTok shop, but just regular TikTok and then somehow there's an ad on there and they're going to be able to purchase without even leaving TikTok. Now this, to me, is kind of a little bit mind boggling, because, you know, I would think that TikTok wants to prioritize TikTok shop.

Bradley Sutton:

But this is interesting. It recognizes, hey, amazon has got a lot of products that maybe people want to buy from there, and so now it says here this Amazon spokesperson says in app shopping with Amazon, is it going to be available for select products advertised on TikTok and sold by Amazon or independent sellers. So basically, what's going to happen, like Instagram and TikTok and others, is, with these new ads, users of those platforms can link their social media accounts to their Amazon profiles and check out within the social media apps using the payment and shipping information they've stored with Amazon. And I guess this the information which is the original source of this news article says that the social media ads are going to show more details that a shopper would find on Amazon's website prices, estimated shipping times, even prime eligibility. So that is a how cool? Is that? Pretty cool, I think. Like if, if you can now run targeted ads like that would be the key to me. Like is it only going to show up, you know, if I'm doing some kind of sponsored display ad or DSP or something like that, and then and Amazon randomly shows me. Or can I target TikTok directly? Can I target hashtags? You know would be interesting. What effect is this going to have on TikTok shop itself? What will be interesting to like? Already, TikTok users are getting kind of upset with how many you know products come to their feed right From TikTok shop. They're still buying it, but you know, like is this going to flood even more e-commerce and might give people some TikTok fatigue? I guess who knows what's going on, but this was interesting breaking news today.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article that we have going on is actually from Seller Central itself, and it's another week. Another news article about raising fees. But this shouldn't be, you know, like earth shattering or something. This is what happens every year. It doesn't matter who you use to ship, you know fulfillment fees increase. Shipping prices increase a lot of times across the board during Q4. So it's saying that, hey, starting October 15th through January 14th, there is going to be peak fulfillment prices. All right, it's going to apply to all products and it's going to be the same within a specific size band. It says and this is going to apply for, you know, remote fulfillment, multi-channel fulfillment, buy with Prime and more. And it says the fulfillment fee is going to be the same as it was last year, except for products priced under $10, because that is going to have a new fee or a new fee in 2024. Because remember the what is it? Small and light no longer has it and they have something that's for $10 and below.

Bradley Sutton:

So I would recommend guys going into seller central and checking out the new like size tiers, like just just as an example. You know, don't think this is something that is going to increase your cost 50% or something crazy like that. For example, let's just say you've got a large standard item I think my coffin shelf is one of those, and it's one point or two to 2.25 pounds I think that's my coffin shelf, I'm not sure, uh. Or if it's two, 25 to 2.5, it's $6 and 5 cents. Let's say I'm paying $6 and 5 cents, now that is going to go up to a $6 and 44 cents. So I mean, that's not nothing, right? You know it's 40 cents per unit on my coffin shelf, all right. So just keep that in mind. That's. That's something that's going to happen.

Bradley Sutton:

You know, some, some sellers raise their prices during Q4 because they know the conversion might be higher, especially during peak shopping times. But just know that if you don't raise your prices, your profit is going to go down due to these fee changes. So again, check your Seller Central dashboard for the links to the articles that will talk about what size tier you're on and what your price was and what it would be, etc. Speaking of fee increases, TikTok shop has fee increases. It's going to nine percent starting in September, but this is for TikTok UK, all right. So I don't have any new information on am. On USA, remember, I think I believe TikTok UK was actually started before USA, unless I'm mistaken. So that could mean that in us. You know some of these fee increases might come behind, but they were at five percent for UK sellers and it is going to 9% for UK sellers, all right, so take a look at. If you're selling on TikTok UK, uh, make sure to check out this article. If you're selling a TikTok Shop US, don't even. You can just skip over that. It doesn't apply to you yet, but just a heads up for you. Uh, selling on Tik TOK in UK. Moving to other platforms, talking about Amazon, talking about TikTok, we're going all over the place.

Bradley Sutton:

Today, let's talk about Temu Sheen and AliExpress. Per an article on TechRadar, it says Temu Sheen and AliExpress are attracting US customers in the millions and this is the funny part and that's despite the fact that the vast majority do not trust these online retailers in the first place. All right, so what's some of the numbers? They polled 4,000 people in the US UK polled 4,000 people in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and they said that 60% of respondents had shopped on one of these three websites in the last year, with 50% of them shopping at more than one. I am not one of them. I'm not on there yet. 72% of people knew about Temu 55% knew about Sheen. 48% of online shoppers, it says, bought items from Temu, 42% from Sheen and 28% from AliExpress. That's mind boggling to me, like I don't know any American people who know about AliExpress. You know outside of you know us Amazon sellers, right? Some of the popular items is adult clothing for Sheen 57%. Household items on Temu 35%. Now this is the funny part here Even though all of these sales, all these people 50% shopping on Temu right, 94% of these respondents said they don't trust Temu, but they're still shopping on there. That's kind of ridiculous to me. If you don't trust them, why are you shopping on there? So that's kind of interesting to me. Is growing in popularity. Like I told you a few weeks ago, I'm investigating starting selling some of my products on Temu to see how that goes, shipping from US and having a higher price, obviously, than the Chinese sellers. Let's see how that goes. I'll have my results on that in a few weeks. I'm also trying to get Project X up on Temu as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Our next article is going back to Seller Central and it is entitled Give Returns a Second Life with FBA Grade and Resell. I don't enroll in this, or I haven't enrolled in this. I'm wondering if has anybody out there enrolled in this FBA Grade and Resell? Because what it does is it says it grades and relists your return products, allowing you to recover value and give them a second life. It's a set it and forget it system and it's a fee-based so. So take a look at more details. If this is right for you, you know, if you're getting a lot of returns and you don't want to have it come back to you or you want to have Amazon take a closer look before putting it back in inventory, maybe this uh service you know could be for you. FBA Grade and Resell. Do a search on that and your seller central dashboard and you will get information on it.

Bradley Sutton:

Next news article is just almost like a throwaway news article. I just thought it was funny because I probably have owned um more Kia souls than most people Like. I think I have owned eight different Kia souls over the last 10 years. I've got two Kia souls right now. Like for my family, uh, my daughter has had three different Kia souls. All right, so we have. We were a Kia soul family. But this article is entitled I think this is from Bloomberg Amazon is testing speedy delivery featuring Kia Souls, all right. So this is kind of like to counterbalance how much they rely on the flex drivers of souls. I'm doing it, but I don't think it's a matter of, oh, if you drive a Kia soul, maybe you can get hired as an Amazon delivery driver. It's actually the opposite, I believe. It looks like maybe Amazon is going to buy their own Kia souls or something and instead of having a like sometimes flex drivers, you know, like have you ever had your Amazon products delivered by door dash drivers or Uber drivers? Or like random strangers, like pulling up to your life, who's this pulling up to my house? Oh, shoot, it's just an Amazon delivery. All right, those are flex drivers. They're not necessarily Amazon employees, but I guess instead of having to rely on that, they want to have like take it in house a little bit and maybe they're going to be buying a fleet of of Kia souls. Interesting. I used to have a blue electric Kia soul. I don't have it anymore, but look, look kind of like the Amazon blue. I wonder what color these Amazon delivery Kia Soles will have. But now you see a Kia Sole pulling up in your neighborhood. It's probably either me or my family or an Amazon delivery driver.

Bradley Sutton:

Last article of the day is an announcement by Amazon saying hey, you can now plan your agenda for Amazon Accelerate 2024. This is the event of the year that you should go to. It's September 17 and 19 in Seattle. You guys have known about that. If you want to sign up, go to h10.me forward slash accelerate. But this announcement is about oh, by the way you know, it talks about seller cafe super important. If you have any issue with your Amazon account at all, seller cafe, set an appointment. You can get it fixed. Most likely, if you're on the right, these guys know what they're doing. If seller central hasn't been able to fix something, I almost guarantee I can't guarantee completely I don't work for Amazon, but I almost want to guarantee that that those seller cafe people can fix it for you. But anyways, the thing that's new is you can now do your agenda. So if you've signed up or are planning to sign up, you want to see what kind of agenda is like. You know when is Martha Stewart speaking, which, which she is and what are the other executives and when is Amazon going to release that? Go to the agenda builder. Mine's not on there yet, but I'm a speaker at Amazon Accelerate myself. So make sure those of you going, you guys put me on your agenda, my speech that I'm going to be doing. We're doing a 15 at Amazon Accelerate and along those same lines for those going to Amazon Accelerate or maybe you just live in Seattle or you want to fly to Seattle, not go to Accelerate just hang out with us.

Bradley Sutton:

Any listener of the podcast you can attend our elite workshop for free on the 16th. Space is limited, so this is not unlimited. It's going to sell out. We're capping at like about 100, 125 people, but we're going to have Kevin King speaking there. We're going to have Destiny I 25 people, but we're going to have Kevin King speaking there. We're going to have destiny I'm going to be there. Jeff Cohen from Amazon advertising Uh, we'll, we'll be there. We'll have some food and beverages. It's going to be from one to 6 PM on September 16th. So go to h10.me forward slash Seattle to get tickets. H10.me forward slash Seattle and it's free for now. All right, um, you know, usually you have to pay like 300 bucks to get into these high level workshops. We have rubbed shoulders with Kevin and Destiny and others, but this one for podcast listeners is going to be free, but while tickets remain, all right, it's going to sell out and then I can't guarantee your entry. I'll see you in Seattle, all right?

Bradley Sutton:

Next up, let's go ahead and combine our training tip of the week with a Helium 10 feature update. It's not really a feature update, but we revamped and made our keyword sales estimations even more accurate, all right. So this is why is keyword sales estimations an important metric? Search volume, obviously, is great. It's a great way to kind of prioritize your keywords. Why? Because you know, maybe you have 10 relevant keywords. You want to know which one to put in your title. Well, if they're all equally relevant, you're probably going to pick them over the most search form. But in addition, what is the reason you're doing that? Well, the reason you're doing that is because you're assuming that the ones with the most search volume can lead to the most sales. Right, and that would normally and in most situations absolutely be a hundred percent accurate statement. All right, but I said most situations, because sometimes you'll have a keyword that has less buyer intent. What does that mean? That means you know a hundred thousand people are searching it, but maybe only 1000 people are actually buying something after it where you could have a keyword with 20,000 searches and 2000 people purchasing a product because it was so specific that it has a lot of buyer intent. So you can see that looking just at search volume sometimes is not the best way to look at things. Well, Helium 10 has keyword sales estimates and they revamped the algorithm and it's pretty cool because I was just doing some testing on my top two keywords Everybody, everybody right now.

Bradley Sutton:

Who's seeing Project X and the coffin shelf. What is our top two keywords? You probably know coffin shelf and gothic decor. So take a look here at where this metric is and let me just show you something super cool. All right, so I'm here right now in Magnet, Helium, Magnet, I put my top two keywords, coffin shelf and Gothic decor and, as you can see here, this is interesting. Coffin shelf has 3,900 searches a month estimated and Gothic decor has 15,000, but you would think that maybe is it three times as many sales that Gothic decor has in coffin shelf. No, um, look at this. This is actually kind of crazy. Coffin shelf has 18 keyword sales, but Gothic decor has 147. So actually, Gothic decor has a lot of buyer intent, even more than coffin shelf. The conversion rate from sales to search volume is a lot higher on Gothic decor.

Bradley Sutton:

Now don't get it twisted. That doesn't mean that Gothic decor is a better keyword. It's not, you know, like Gothic decor. If you look at the people who buy things on Gothic decor, they're buying all kinds of products. They're not really buying coffin shelves, you know per se. Okay, so take a look at this. Um, let me just show you, uh, how accurate this is. Like you can't do this always, but I just. These were the first two keywords I tested, because this is what's near and dear to my heart. Right, I love how Amazon shows data, because when Amazon shows more data, sometimes people say, oh, amazon showing search query performance and brand analytics and this and that, and why do I need Helium 10 anymore? That's like incompetent. I'm like no, it's great, because the more data that Amazon shows, the more you could actually kind of prove that Helium 10's data is correct. So watch this. I went inside brand analytics, top search terms, and I looked first at coffin shelf, right, and this is not something you can do a hundred percent of the time. And, and Helium 10 is not going to be like a hundred percent. Uh, exactly, you know aligned with this, but it's just one of these things that just shows you how accurate Helium 10 is most of the time.

Bradley Sutton:

Take a look at this coffin shelf. It's telling you that there were pro, there were three products that had. One of them had 5.56% conversion, one of them had 33.33% and one of them had 5.56%. And then you can add those three numbers up, subtract it from 100% and then get like the remaining amount of conversions right Now. Here's the thing. That's on an actual number, right? So if you put in some random number like 153, and then you took 550 or 5.56%, it might come out to some number that that has like this decimal place, and then you know that, well, it's probably the wrong estimate because it's not exactly like that should be a whole number. So watch this. So I put those percentages here in a Google spreadsheet 5.56% twice 33.3% and the remainder is 55.55% Anyway.

Bradley Sutton:

So what did Helium 10 say? Was the sales again 18. So if I put 18 right here and I have this calculation, that goes it. Look, it works out to a perfect whole number here. All right, so the first product, and now I can actually see how many sales did that product have the top three. They had one sale, all right. This one had six sales, this one had one sale. So pretty cool, right? Uh, it came out perfect. Now what about Gothic decor? Let's take a look. Gothic decor we said 147, uh, sales, and then, if you look at brand analytics, uh, we have percentages of 1.36%, 1.36%, and then another couple of numbers here. I put it here Actually they're all 1.36% and that means 95.92% is the other orders. So let's put the Helium 10 number of 147 in here and survey says look at that, it comes out to a perfect number here of two sales, two sales, two sales and the rest of the product 141 sales.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, like I said this, you can't just do this cross-check. It's not always going to line up perfectly, especially when we're talking about, you know, ones where it says zero sales or 50% or something. But you know Helium 10 has other algorithms. That's why we're able to keep so, so accurate here. But now, guys, you know, take a look at that data about keyword sales. I think it's going to be very beneficial for you to look at that number so you can prioritize keywords based on which ones have the most buyer intent. So if you have a Platinum Plan at Helium 10, you're going to see the keyword sales estimate in Magnet and Cerebro. Make sure you're taking a look at that. All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us this week. Don't forget to tune in next week to see what's buzzing.