Helium 10 Buzz 1/18/24: Amazon Shopping AI Live | New Walmart PPC Ads | Germany Helium 10 Event

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, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.

Amazon launches generative AI tool to answer shoppers’ questions
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/16/amazon-launches-generative-ai-tool-to-answer-shoppers-questions.html

FedEx announces its own commerce platform for merchants
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/15/fedex-announces-its-own-commerce-platform-for-merchants/

Amazon May Start Charging Users for Certain Alexa Services
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/amazon-alexa-plus-subscription-service

Helium 10 Elite / AVASK Plus Workshop: A Day of E-Commerce Mastery in Frankfurt, Germany
h10.me/avaskgermany

The discussion concludes with a dive into using Amazon’s brand analytics data together with Helium 10’s Black Box to unearth niche keywords and product opportunities, offering you three different sets of strategies for identifying market gaps and leveraging data to enhance your Amazon-selling game. Join us for an episode that's not just about the news, but about giving you the insights and strategies to level up your Amazon journey.

 

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

• 00:48 - Amazon App AI Tool
• 03:21 - FedEx Marketplace?
• 05:02 - Alexa Plus
• 06:17 - Walmart Video Ads
• 07:08 - FBA Shipment Window
• 08:42 - Reduce Returns
• 10:32 - Europe Conference
• 11:33 - Pro Training Tip: Amazon Product Research Tools

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon has started rolling out its consumer side generative AI shopping assistant. FedEx making an e-commerce marketplace. Walmart, sponsored brand ads and video ads, have a beta launch. A first-ever Helium 10 workshop in Germany next week. This and more on today's episode of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz.

 

Bradley Sutton:

We give you a rundown of all the news stories and articles that's going on in the e-commerce world and we give you training tips of the week that will give you serious strategies For serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. We've got a lot of articles today, so let's go ahead and hop right into it now. The first one here is actually from CNBC and it was an article Entitled Amazon launches generative AI tool to answer shoppers questions. Now, this is pretty interesting because you know we've been talking about this for over a year, about how amazon has been testing Different tools and they're going to be coming out with things that allow the consumers you know, like shoppers of amazon to perhaps have generative AI like Conversations when they are shopping. Now it hasn't gotten to that point yet. However, something new that has been spotted in the wild I haven't seen it in my app yet is that there's a prompt that asks customers questions about a specific item and then it returns an answer within a few seconds by summarizing information collected from product reviews and the listing itself. Now something to note again. Like I said, this is not some conversation like you can. You can do with ChatGPT. It says, unlike open-art ai's ChatGPT, amazon's new feature isn't equipped to carry out a conversation, but it can respond to creative prompts. It says on a listing for a woman's vest, it could write a haiku about the product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How that Is going to help us sell products, I'm not sure. So take a look here. It says it was also able to describe the item in the style of Yoda from star wars. All right, and it actually had a screenshot of this. So I guess somebody who has this app they typed in Can you describe the product as if you are Yoda from star wars? And then the answer that this amazon app says Yoda why is jedi master would describe this product thusly. And it says crop puffer vest. Women wear zipper closure. Yes, okay, I'm sorry that was a bad Yoda impression, but literally I wasn't making that up. This is a screenshot from this article and it it answered about this product in this style of Yoda. Again, I am not sure how that is going to help us sell products. There's probably a lot of other things. I wish amazon might Maybe put a little effort into more than Allowing its ai app to respond in the or not in the voice, thank goodness, but in the tense of or the form of Yoda. But hey, it is what it is. Um, technology is getting kind of scary. Could this, you know, a future iteration of this actually help sales for us? Maybe it's too early to see so generative ai it. It's not coming anymore. It has come All right, so look out for this in your amazon app.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is actually from tech crunch and it's entitled FedEx announces its own commerce platform for merchants. Now, right off the bat, let me just go ahead and say you know, I did a little clickbait. I said, oh, this might be a marketplace, no, FedEx says it's not a marketplace. it's this new commerce platform they're calling fdx, all right, and it's in private preview, with a wider launch schedule for fall of 2024. Now it's not really known what in the world it's going to be. You know, like they said, it's not going to be a marketplace. However, they did purchase this service called shop Uh runner a couple years ago, or a few years ago now, and it allows people to see estimated delivery time on websites, handle shopping carts, track packages, record carbon emissions for those who are interested in that managed returns, etc. You know, but they specifically says we are not in the business of the marketplace, we're trying to help businesses build the best possible experience From demand to post purchase.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, like I'm just confused, like I have no idea what the heck this is. You know, since, since FedEx is not, you know, really being open with it, but you know, shots were fired Earlier this year or last year. Now when, when Amazon's like, hey, we're gonna be a shipping company. Now you know, like you don't have to be selling products on FBA, you can use Amazon as a shipping company, like that's like direct competition for FedEx and UPS. So FedEx is like I'm gonna clap back at you right and say, alright, well, let's get into the commerce game. How they're gonna do that? I'm not sure are they gonna be successful, who knows? But be interesting to watch out if there's a new player on the block.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Going back to the articles, men's journal comm had something Says Amazon may start charging users for certain Alexa services. They're gonna launch this thing called Alexa plus later this year and they're gonna be able to have exclusive Features and it's gonna be the revitalized, subscription based version of its voice assistant June 30th. Now this is another one I'm very skeptical about. I mean, alexa has not really improved in years, you know, and it's been struggling. I, if I were Amazon, I would not be trying to put a price tag on it Until it was proven to really really be better, because I'm just not sure that Alexa is worth any kind of money. Well, I know Alexa is not worth any money. You know nobody's gonna pay extra money for it now. Now Could they make something super cool again using generative AI? That would make it worth couple bucks a month potentially. But let's see. You know, the thing that affects Amazon sellers is Are more people gonna be shopping on Alexa because of some new features it might have? That's to be determined. Now that's gonna affect us, like not many people I know ever buy anything on Alexa, but if that changes, that would be very helpful to Amazon sellers.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article was actually an email I got from Walmart, so guys, check this out. If you got the email, you might be on this beta program where they say, hey, Walmart connect is it excited to inform me that we are testing sponsored brands and sponsored video inventory on browse and topic pages on Walmart site, starting last week actually, and it's gonna run a minimum of four weeks. All right, we have generated next Recommended next step, so check if you got this email and you can click on it. It says, hey, all self-serve sponsored search advertisers With scheduled live or net, new sponsored brand and sponsored video campaigns will automatically be updated and part of the test and they gave a couple of screenshots of how sponsored brand ads might look looks very similar to what we all know and love in Amazon Advertising. So check your email, whatever your Walmart email is, if you have that Next article is actually not article, but it's from the seller central dashboard and this is an update of something previously announced and it's Entitled automatic closure policy for shipments will be updated on February 1st.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so this was announced before, but they clarified it a little bit. So let's say this is again Effective February 1st. Let's say you create a shipment, all right, using the send to Amazon workflow. So so you're trying to send inventory into Amazon from your let's just say, your own 3pl here in the United States or in Europe. Domestic shipment, in other words, from US addresses, if it has not arrived within 45 days After the shipment creation date, the Shipment will automatically be closed, all right. Or I mean, if it doesn't arrive within this, this time of the policy now for International shipments, that means you create a shipment that's going to be coming from your Chinese or Indian or Pakistani Factory. Well, you're gonna have 75 days from the shipment creation date. For most of you this doesn't have. You know this might not affect you, but but what if they're shipping delays? Or maybe you accidentally, you know, create your shipment too early and then you know Chinese New Year's came, you know, like what's happening right now, and then it delayed your shipment a month. You know, could you be pushing this time limit? It's, it's a possible. So just take a look at this in your dashboard if you have any questions. They clarified a couple of things, but you can't just create open-ended shipments anymore and, you know, expect five years later, or five years or five months later for Amazon to accept your package.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One last news article from the seller central dashboard this was from last week and it's something new on Amazon where it says reduce customer returns recommendation. This is in the growth opportunities tool and it's supposed to gonna tell you, like the financial impact of Money you could have gained over 90 days if you've done the recommended actions. This I can pretty much take with the tiniest grain of salt I have ever eaten, because I have never found value in these Estimations that that Amazon gives and I'm not trying to throw Amazon to the bus, I'm just keeping it real, guys but I haven't seen anything that gives me faith that this algorithm is gonna work. That being said, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because there's gonna be some recommendations that's gonna have. Now, this could be potentially, you know, beneficial. You know, forget the what's the potential impact. Just being able to see what the Amazon algorithm Thinks you should do will be interesting because it's supposedly, as this article says, it's gonna be based on Customers, customer issue trends and reviews and it's gonna compare your listing to other top-selling brands. Now that is something I could see that could be helpful where, hey, here's a brand that has a similar product and it's a really selling well and they've got, like this field filled out that you don't have filled out now. That could be Beneficial. The other thing that seemed interesting, but again I'm skeptical on, is it said hey, find out whether placing content in the title bullets or product description of your detail pages, we'll have the greatest impression on customers if they're just making this up, you know, like I'm pretty sure that us experience Amazon sellers probably no better than Amazon as far as how the algorithm works, as far as things like this. But again, if they've got some advanced new information that that is coming out, this could be a potential way to have insight into the Amazon algorithm. All right, so so look out for that on your, your dashboard as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Last thing, again, next week, a chevalier myself will be in Germany, Frankfurt, Germany. We are gonna be at our very first ever all-day event that Helium 10 is doing together with the VASC. So if you'd like to attend, go to h10.me/avaskgermany. It's only 75 euros to attend all day. We've got tons of speakers coming from multiple countries All over Europe. I'll be there myself. We're gonna have a networking social. We're providing food. It's gonna be in the Frankfurt airport, all right. So, like I don't care where you are in Europe, you're, you're like a Ryan air 30 dollar Ryan air flight away from Frankfurt. You don't even need to get an Uber. You just walk out of the terminal and you're right there. All right, guys. So again, h10.me forward slash a VASC Germany. Please come out. It would be great to see you all and meet you guys in person next week, on the 25th of January. All right, that's it for the news this week.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next up, let's get into our training tip of the week, and actually it's multiple ones. I want to spend just a couple of times just showing you the power of the new Helium 10 tool that came out a few weeks ago in black box, called ABA, top search terms, which is for Amazon brand analytics. The possibilities are endless with the kind of research you can do, so I just picked a couple of scenarios here to show you. Let's pretend that you have a product or a factory that makes products made of bamboo. I actually have a brand that makes bamboo products and you're like hey, what are some trending bamboo Keywords, right, so. So then you go in and you go into black box, you go into the new tool, aba, top search terms, and then what you can do is you enter bamboo, just like you would in Amazon brand analytics inside of seller central. But then now I can enter in other things, like, for example, I'm gonna enter in the helium minimum, Helium 10 search volume of 500. I'm going to say, hey, I want to see where the top three clicked ASINs, okay, per brand analytics have a total of less than 200 reviews. Meaning, hey, these the top products in this keyword, they're not even, they don't even have that many reviews Overall. There might be some. You know room for me.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And take a look at the keywords that came up here. You know we've got like bamboo cool underwear here, bamboo boxer briefs. I'm already seeing like a you know some, some trends here. And then, as I scroll down here, this one jumped out to me bamboo lampshade. And right here in this brand analytics tool I can see, wow, okay, this has a thousand search volume. It's increased 35% this search volume over the previous week. And then I'm looking at these top three clicked and, yeah, these are products are fairly new. Look at this, the number one clicked item for this keyword only has five reviews. All right, so let's just go ahead and take a look at this on Amazon and I can see this Amazon page, like you know, the number one, page one, position one, only has 14 reviews. Position two, six reviews. Position three has a hundred reviews and it's sold a hundred units. So this is pretty interesting. You know, like I found a new niche, potentially for myself, if I'm selling bamboo products, just by using the brand analytics data together with Amazon or Helium 10 data allowed me to find this new niche. So guys, play around with that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Option number two let's just say, hey, I'm doing some, some new research and I'm like, hey, I want to see a keyword that, per brand analytics, the total click share of the top three items are 70%, meaning that the top three click products. If you add up how much percent of the clicks they get, it's over 70%. But if you add up their conversion share, meaning what share of the sales of this keyword do these top three click products have, it's less than 35%. What does that mean? Think about that for a second. Theoretically speaking, if, if all products and listings were created equal, if there is a listing that or some listings that get 70% of the clicks, well, it should have 70% of the sales, right. But most, most keywords, most products are not created equal.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Sometimes people click into a product and they're like, wow, this is amazing, so it's conversion rates going to be super high. Other times, everybody's clicking into products and it's like, nah, we don't like this, this listing sucks, this product sucks, whatever right, and the conversion rates going to be lower. So that's what I'm looking for. Show me where there's a lot of buyer intent for three products. That means whatever they see in the search results, it looks good. So if they click it, it like 70, 70% of all the clicks for a keyword. That's a lot right, but everybody's clicking out of it and buying another product that wasn't even one of the top three click. So that's literally what I'm looking for here, using brand analytics. You know you can't do this in seller central unless you download stuff and make some pivot tables.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'm also using some other Helium 10 data points like hey, I want these keywords to have 2000 search volume at least and at least three word count. I want these keywords. It not only has to match everything I just said, but I wanted to have a search volume trend that's going up. I want to see this going up 50% week over week. Search forms, like it's a trending keyword. And then take a look there's a hundred and 78 keywords that that had this like look at this one human dogbed that that's a crazy keyword. Human dog bed has a 500% increase in search volume. recently. All right, that that's kind of insane. there's other you know products here mini chainsaw, cordless. You know there's some, just random, one wagons cart, foldable. The heck is that cigar ass trays for men has a 1000% increase in search volume. And then take a look here the top three clicked products for this cigar ass trays. Look at this the number one click product for this keyword has 94% of the clicks but 0% of the conversion. So there's something fishy going on there. Everybody seems to love it in the search results but nobody likes it on the page. However, another product there had 0.6% of the clicks yet 11% of the purchases. So again, there's just so much valuable information in brand analytics that you guys can do for your product research. But now you have a completely new way to search for it using helium tens brand analytics tool.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One last scenario here. Let's say you're doing keyword research. Hey, you look up all the coffin shelves, let's just say, and you put all of the ASINs of the top selling coffin shelves into this tool and basically what you want to see is hey, where did any of these products show up as one of the top three clicked for any keyword? Well, boom goes the dynamite. You just put in the ASINs and within seconds you are going to get every single keyword where it was one of the top three clicked and you'll be able to see if it was one of the top three purchase. You can see it's click share Like here's a keyword I didn't even, you know, think about, for I might not even be focused on in for our project X coffin shelf, alternative decor. All right, that's a new keyword for me. I discovered it right here in brand analytics.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, guys, if you haven't used this tool, make sure to use it. I believe for now it's open to diamond and up members. You know we always try and you know, give our tools first to elite, then to diamond and then it'll get down on platinum. But you know there's tons of you diamond users out there. So make sure you guys are getting the value out of this tool. Open up, play around with it. Let me know what you think. What other kind of filters would you like to see? All right, guys. That's it for our Weekly Buzz this week. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next week to see what's buzzing.