Amazon FBA Tips & Tricks: Competition, Amazon Reviews & Building A Brand

Amazon FBA tips & tricks are extremely valuable when you are building an online business.

While I was at the SellerCon event in Orlando, Florida this past year I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Cohen. He has been in the e-commerce game for over 15 years now.

Not only has Jeff run a multi-million dollar Amazon sales channel, but he is also a Partner at SellerLabs, which is a company that provides tools and services for Amazon sellers.

This is a guy who knows what it takes in order to be a successful Amazon seller. He is going to share with you some key Amazon FBA tips & tricks related to competition, Amazon reviews & building a brand.

This is an interview that you don't want to miss!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Amazon has changed the face of retail forever.

In my interview with Jeff, we talk about the power of Amazon and how you can become a successful Amazon seller. Here is a sneak peak of our conversation.

How did you get into Amazon and eventually become a Partner at SellerLabs?

I got into Amazon by accident. I was looking for a job and one of the hiring companies was looking for a textbook wholesaler. This was back in the early 2000's. I ran their corporate advertising department. This was my corporate day job. We sold all of our extra inventory on Amazon.

I started e-commerce operations for that company, called Textbooks.com. This was an 8-figure site that sold college textbooks. I always thank people for paying so much for their textbooks because it helped us run our business. After I left there, I went into the affiliate world. I ran a website called Canvasbooks.com. It was back in the day of price aggregation where they would aggregate prices of all of the different sites.

This was Textbooks.com biggest affiliate.

I met a guy there who worked for us. After he left the company, he started going to USPS auctions. They would take all of the stuff that fell off of a truck and it would end up in a warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia. In this warehouse, there would be boxes and boxes of things.

We started buying books and textbooks at these auctions and built a 15,000 square foot warehouse. All of our own software was being written by us. Back in 2011-2013, there wasn't a lot of software for the stuff that we were doing.

That is where Feedback Genius was created. We would list a book as “torn cover.” However, people would buy it and still complain that the cover was torn. We thought that if we sent emails to people that bought really good books, we could reduce the bad and increase the good. Very quickly we realized that we liked software more than we liked selling. Our company started to pivot.

In April of 2018, Feedback Genius became a public tool and space. Today, we run 4 different tools, work with 50,000 Amazon sellers, and manage over 10 million dollars of Amazon advertising on our platform. We send over one million emails per day.

How have you seen Amazon evolve and change over the last 10-15 years? What do you see as the opportunities moving forward?

The biggest change over the last 10-15 years is that Amazon used to be a book site. Today, it is an everything store. Many of us who have been in this business for a long time have come to realize that we need to study Jeff Bezos.

If we don't understand him, then we don't understand where things are going.

The biggest change that has occurred in the last 3 years is that Amazon was always created with a first party side, which was the vendor central, and a third party side, which was the seller central. This was initially created to be a reseller platform.

If you talk to people that have been in this business for 5 years, they probably started off doing online arbitrage. That platform is shifting. The majority of successful Amazon sellers today have built a brand. The Amazon platform is becoming more agnostic for people that have followed it historically.

There are things that you used to only be able to do on vendor central that you couldn't do on seller central. Now, you can do almost everything on both platforms. The opportunity in this space is still very large. However, what has changed is how you need to take advantage of the opportunity.

I don't ever tell anybody that retail arbitrage is dead.

It's definitely more difficult than it was 2 years ago, but privateFBA and building a brand on Amazon is where this marketplace is going. The growth that we are seeing in the numbers of sellers who are successful is amazing.

Amazon released numbers back in 2016. They said that they had over 100,000 sellers who sell over $100,000. It was the first time that any of us had received numbers. In 2017, they came out with new numbers and said that it was 140,000 sellers.

This proves that there is an opportunity for more people to have bigger businesses. It's just that what it takes to achieve that is different than what is used to be.

In your opinion, what is the mindset that a new seller should adopt when it comes to understanding the competitive nature of Amazon?

The days of finding a product and having success with it are gone. It's just not as easy to do anymore. You've got to come into this business with the mentality of it being in it for the long-term. What FBA offers are all of the things that you just talked about.

I can find a product, work with the manufacturer to improve that product, and build a brand around it. Finally, I can stick a product into this global system that will deliver it to all of my customers when acquisitions occur. That's cool. However, doing all of this requires that you bring forth products that are innovative.

You always want to be seeking a blue ocean. You don't want to be doing what others are doing. That's what you have to be looking for when you are researching a product.

Does it fit a blue ocean?

Sometimes it's as simple as coming out with a color that nobody else has. You don't have to invent a brand new product. There will be competition no matter what. Anybody that tells you otherwise is lying to you. It is just a matter of how you attack the competition.

At SellerLabs I know that you have a product called Scope that is an important tool for the product research process. What are some tips that you offer to people who are currently in the research phase of building their business?

If you've never selected a product before, just take action and pick one. So many people get stuck in “analysis paralysis.” They look to Scope, JungleScout, Viral Launch – all of these different tools that are out there.

They are literally debating over whose numbers are right. I'm not going to tell you whose numbers are right or wrong. All of them are based on an algorithm that we are each individually using. Look at the data as a piece of information that you will use to take your next step. It's not an end all be all. You can't get hung up on the numbers alone.

What are the reviews saying? Can you improve the product? Have you contacted a manufacturer that can make a product for less or a better quality than your competition? Can you build a community around a product? If you can do this, you can launch almost any product that you want.

When you have a lot of followers, your audience will buy your product.

Not even a tool can give you the answers to all of these questions. As a seller on the platform, you need to be looking for what your criteria will look like. Don't try to follow somebody else's.

If you are a first-time seller, don't get hung up on building a brand. By doing so, you are adding a massive amount of complexity to what you are trying to do. However, consider it when you are picking your product. Is there a community of people that socialize around a product?

Let's say that I want to sell a beer bottle opener. I actually want to go after people who are into tailgating and build a community around that. From there, I can sell them my opener. You want to harness your own group in order to take the sales velocity and get ranked on Amazon. That's how you win on Amazon.

A lot of people do the research, pick a product but then they never take action with it. Can you share your insights around that?

This is a process that you have to learn. If you pick the right product the first time, you probably still aren't going to make money on it. I like to tell people that they should always set a level of expectation.

Breaking even on your first purchase is a win. From there, you can decide whether or not you want to take it to the next level. You can identify all of the information, but when you actually hit the market, it may tell you something different.

That shouldn't stop you.

Experience the market, figure out what you did right and wrong, adjust, and move forward. It's not to say that you are going to lose money, but it's fair to assume that your first product isn't going to make you a millionaire.

Can you share more information about the email follow-up process and what your tool, Feedback Genius, can do for people?

Quite simply, Feedback Genius automates the follow-up process for you. We tie directly into the Amazon buyer messaging system. When actions occur on your account, we send messages to you, as part of that follow-up sequence. That's the technical side of it.

What has happened in the Amazon ecosystem is that the value of the review has become more important. While fewer messages are getting through to your customers, the ones that get through and give you the feedback become that much more important.

A lot of this has been caused by sellers themselves. We sent too many messages to people, we had incentivized review groups, and now Amazon is trying to clean up the system.

First and foremost, check your subject line. If you read your message and it's not something that you would open, your customers won't either. Secondly, tell your brand story. It's about taking the story of your brand that you are trying to sell your product(s) and bringing that into the story you are telling your customers.

Thirdly, you need to have a community outside of Amazon that you are conversing with. Those are going to the be the people that become most loyal to you and end up leaving the reviews that you want.

You can't be solely dependent on Amazon.

You are going to get fewer reviews, but those reviews will be significantly more valuable to you. Lastly, when your customers give you reviews, listen to them. Use these as opportunities to prepare your product for re-order, find a new product or a new way to innovate your current one.

I'm shocked at how many sellers have been selling on Amazon for a long period of time and keep reordering the same product over and over again.

The best analogy I use for this is shopping at department stores when I was younger. Anytime that you walk into a retail operation there is something new in the window. The same thing should apply to your Amazon business.

Even if you are selling something simple, like a garlic press, think about how you can improve it over time. If you don't evolve your product, its life cycle will shrink dramatically.

One other thing that I want to mention is that, under your product listing, you have a Q&A. Respond to people! If somebody asks you a question, respond with an answer. It shows that you care about your customers.

What other features of your tool should people know about?

Amazon has always had really strong rules around messaging buyers. However, they haven't always enforced those rules. Lately, we've seen that Amazon is enforcing those rules more strictly. You can't do any type of marketing or promotion, have any links to your website, or offer any coupons for future purchases.

The biggest thing that is still up in the air is how many messages you can send to a customer. We have been recommending to people that, unless there is a really good reason, get it down to one.

Think about how many times you get emails for things you buy.

If you have a product that requires somebody to be home to sign for it, send them a message before it arrives and let them know. Otherwise, message them after they get it, and provide them with some level of value that is over and beyond what they were expecting. Once you do this, then you can ask for a review.

The days of the multi-email sequences are ending. Amazon doesn't want their buyers getting five messages. So many people think that “If I send five emails, eventually they will reply.”

Instead, work on your subject line. If it's interesting then people will read the rest of your message. The main priority for using Feedback Genius is customer service. The byproduct of that is getting a review. That is the cherry on top.

Do you mind sharing with people a little bit about the other two tools that you have?

Quantify is our data analytics tool. It gives you canned reports on how your products are doing. Ignite is our advertising management platform tool. If you are a hands-off Amazon advertiser and you want a tool to go on autoplay for your ads, this will do that for you.

What general advice would you have for someone that is just getting started building an Amazon business, as well as those that are already in the Amazon game, but want to scale up?

If you are brand new to Amazon, it comes down to taking action. It sounds so cliche, but it's true. This is a big, scary world. The opportunity is there but you've got to get in and try it so that you understand what is involved.

Courses are a great option for people that are trying to figure out how Amazon works.

I always say that courses are structured content. As you become a more experienced seller, you start adjusting your content in different ways and innovating on your own from the content that you've digested. There is no blueprint that works because you have to figure out what works for you. You are what makes this work. If you put in the effort, you will get the rewards.

For those that have been in this for a long time, you really have to be focused around your brand. Amazon came out in 2016 with some conferences in China that I was able to attend.

They were focused on the building of brands. That theme has continued over the last two years. If you are playing the long game and building successful brands, your business will one day generate you a lot of profit.

I believe that the opportunity on Amazon is still young. The difference is that it requires that you build a business. It's no longer just a hobby.

I hope you gained some valuable knowledge from these Amazon FBA tips & tricks!

Now is the time to implement what you have learned and put this knowledge into practice. Are you ready to take the leap?