Seller Sessions Amazon FBA and Private Label

Following my recent gig at ASGTG in Brooklyn for Ed Rosenburg, I caught up with Many Hoffman to get an inside view of what makes Brooklyn a hot bed of turning out some of the most successful Amazon sellers on the planet. As a concentration point, Brooklyn is pretty much pound for pound the most successful place of collective sellers doing 10's of millions in revenue each year. Many Hoffman is the CEO and Founder of Ptex Group; an award winning marketing and business services agency headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. They specialise in helping businesses flourish amidst a rapidly evolving marketplace. Ptex Group has garnered critical acclaim for its work and been featured in Inc. Magazine, Crains Magazine, The Daily News, and the American Express OPEN Forum.  

On Thursdays with Sharon Even we welcome Christina Passmore, Founder of Christina Ink, to discuss the importance of Social Media Marketing for scaling an Amazon FBA business. Christina discusses the importance of Social Strategy, the benefits of effective social media management, and some great tips to help sellers leverage the best content across multiple channels. About Christina: Christina ditched her luxury airline lifestyle at 40 to start selling on Amazon to test her determination. In 2019 she sprung into action and carved out a 6 figure beauty brand that even some of the biggest names in the Amazon space couldn't believe possible for someone with no experience. Her secret weapon? Unlike most Amazon sellers, Christina understood the power of content marketing and social media marketing to grow a following and skyrocket her reach and sales across the world's largest online marketplace. Her savvy approach to content helped her leverage 7 viral TikTok influencers without paying a dime to catapult her brand across the Canadian market. She transitioned into copywriting and content marketing when she realized covid-19 would force many Amazon sellers out of business. Instead of giving up, she studied Amazon listing creation, content curation, and social media management to help sellers scale their businesses with the same secret weapon that helped her grow two online businesses in less than a year. Content was and is the driving force of her passion and profession, and her innate content marketing skills are a force to be reckoned with.

This week on Inspired with Bell... Abraham Muheize is an entrepreneur from San Diego, Ca who started his own Professional Basketball team called the San Diego Kings. They focused on Community First “winning in the community before winning in the gym.” Abe now brings this same concept to NFT’S and growing a community with Picture Day by Gina Palmerin as well as the Web 3 League. 3 on 3 basketball with athletes that get compensated to focus on the Community First.

Today I am joined by 9 figure seller Ash Thompson, 8 figure seller Brandon Young and John Hefter, a co-founder of Thrasio, the fastest growing profitable start up in history. You could say these guys know a thing or two about optimising main images; on products doing millions of dollars per year on Amazon. We also welcome back to the show Marius Serban whom is one of the leading photographers in the US for large Amazon sellers. Ash Thompson Spent 3 years playing poker professionally 2011-2014 before moving into Ecommerce and selling products on Amazon in 2014. Went from 0-120m / year in 7 years before selling to Branded in Jan 2021. Global team of 200 employees with, offices in Florida, China, UK, Mexico & PH. Also, invested in Multi family real estate in the US to multiply the money he earned from his Amazon business. Brandon Young Considered by many to be one of the leaders in current Amazon Private Label strategies, Brandon Young began selling on Amazon in 2015, as most sellers do, with arbitrage. Seeking a more scalable business model, he pivoted to wholesale and private label. In June of 2016 he launched his first private label brand. Less than 3 years later, he is exclusively private label, has multiple brands with 8 figures in revenue. Marius Serban Marius Serban is a designer and a photographer with 22 years experience in the field. Regardless of the task at hand, designing a checkout page for a 9 figure Silicon Valley company, or photographing for Amazon sellers, his goals was and remains the same: conversion.

This week on Inspired with Bell... Janice Buu is the founder of Kana Skincare, CBD infused K-beauty skincare (custom formulas, vegan, cruelty free) has also been organically recognised by Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Allure, New Beauty, Vogue, South China Morning Post, award winning TV shows and Netflix/HBO series. With an innate talent in entrepreneurship and business, Janice was raised on the sales floor since age 3. She's named "The Woman to Watch in the CBD Space" by Marie Claire, and "The Beauty Industry Disruptor" by Huffpost. She's also passionate about connecting like-minded groups to create a greener planet.

In today's podcast, Sharon Even Shows how she uses Facebook groups to promote her products, this can help with Brand Awareness and Sales and is FREE to do.

AMZ not only says the want to build build brands and they also want to reward people who provide external traffic. Sellers have to be seen as the authority. Understanding SEO and ranking off AMZ is as important as understanding how to optimise your listing. Google provides free tools to help promote your brand but also drive traffic back to your product listing. Learn how to set up you Google Profile and find out how to optimise your content to reach maximum authority. Norman Farrar is an entrepreneur who provides online marketing and managed eCommerce solutions for brands. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz and 20th Century Fox. Since the early 1990s, Norman has focused on helping entrepreneurs optimise their operations and unlock their business’s potential.

Marius Serban is a designer and a photographer with 22 years experience in the field. Regardless of the task at hand, designing a checkout page for a 9 figure Silicon Valley company, or photographing for Amazon sellers, his goals was and remains the same: conversion.” should be "his goal was and remains the same: conversion A technical approach of product photography... Lighting • Lighting is the MOST important key of a great product photo. If you take a picture with a $50,000 camera in very poor light conditions, that picture will turn worse than a picture taken with an iPhone in great light conditions. • Source of light - the bigger the light modifier, the softer the light, which will compliment the model better. As a general rule, I use 3x 7’ umbrellas for my lighting. However, if I shoot something like a sport product, where I need more defined shadows, I either use a smaller umbrella, or a small reflector. • 3x 600w strobe lights will be enough for most scenarios, but sometimes I’m using 4-5 depending on how much space I need to cover. Aperture • Aperture will determine the amount of blur your picture will have in the background. • The smaller the aperture, f11-f14, the sharper the background will be. However the smaller the aperture, the more light you will need. • A lot of photographer choose to use higher aperture (which will make the background blurry) just because they don’t have enough light. ISO • The higher the ISO, the more noise you will have in the picture. • For my studio shots, I am at ISO 100 with an aperture of f14-f16. For my on-location pictures, I will go to about 320ISO max, so the pictures will be clean as much as possible. Lenses • I am using my 24-70mm lens for about 90% of my pictures. The tighter the space you have, the smaller the focal lens will need to be. Sometimes, like if I’m shooting in a tight laundry room or party, 24mm is barely enough. • However, I am always trying to shoot at over 50mm (59mm is the equivalent of what our human eyes see). • The wider the lens, the more deformed the subject will be (which is not ideal!) • For super detailed shots, I love to use my 100mm lens www.amz.photography info@amz.photography  +1-916-833-6127 WhatsApp (the fastest way to reach me)

This week on Inspired with Bell…   Jana Krekic is a certified translator, international keynote speaker, an e-commerce consultant and also the founder of 7-figure Amazon dedicated translations agency - YLT Translations.  She has had over 5 years of experience working  not only with various 7 to 9-figure Amazon sellers,  but also with multi-national brands/marketplace across the globe.   Prior to becoming the founder of YLT, Jana was also a business development manager in one of the biggest North European online eCommerce platforms for 8 years where she had gained a lot of experience with online businesses.    She doesn’t only lead the team of 80 people, but also completely understands E-commerce and Amazon and has created an Amazon dedicated translation agency which helps sellers scale their businesses across different international marketplaces.

Recently Sharon launched a Niche product focused on a very specific buyer avatar within the camping niche, and Today on Thursdays with Sharon she shares what she recently discovered about the product listing which is negatively impacting the sales. Sharon put a lot of time into understanding the buyer avatar, understanding keywords with buying intent for this niche, and how she could differentiate the product to appeal to her avatar. A lot of time and money was put into this, But 2 months later and the product is not selling as expected. Sharon shares what she realized she is doing wrong and how she means to fix it.