TAS 188 : (Hot Seat) Is My Product Still Worth Selling on Amazon?

Being on the “Hot Seat” doesn’t necessarily sound like a pleasant thing. But in this case it could be a powerful helpful place to be. Today's episode of the podcast is a “hot seat” edition where Scott and his friend Chris look over an existing Amazon product listing to supply tweaks and suggestions on how to maximize sales. Today's hot seat participant has a product that has begun to sell much less than it once did and he's curious if he should even put in the effort to maximize its potential, or to just give up and choose different product. Many Amazon sellers ask that same question, so you can learn a lot from this episode.

What if I picked a trendy product?

We've all seen those trendy products that sell like hot cakes for a short time and then fall off the face of the Earth. Selfie sticks are one example that are mentioned in today's episode. What do you do if your product is one of those trendy items that may not be popular a year from now? Are there ways to leverage it differently so that you can continue to get sales? Are there ways to couple it with other things to create bundles? On this episode Scott and Chris are going to deal with those exact issues relating to the product on the hot seat today. Make sure you listen to get some tips about what you can do with your products, where they are trendy or not.

The main image of your product is critically important.

The product listing on today's hot seat edition of the podcast is a great example to teach you the importance of the primary image on your listing. This product is unique in some of its design characteristics, but the main image does not clearly show what it is. When Scott and Chris each went to the product listing page neither of them recognized the product for what it really is. They feel that switching the main image to one that is similar to those of the competitors would be a great step in increase in sales. It's a simple step that could make all the difference. Find out more of the tweaks Scott and Chris suggest on this episode.

Your product category matters - a lot.

When setting up your product listing on Amazon you need to be careful about the category you select for your product to be listed under. Today's hot see participant has chosen a category that is related to the product and both Scott and Chris can see why he chose that category, but most of his competition is in a different category that is more clearly related to the product. They feel that in order to be competitive he should be in the same category as his competition. On this episode will get to hear how they suggest he makes that transition and what effect they think it will have.

PPC is not always the answer.

The listener who is on today's hot seat edition has spent more and more money on pay per click and is seeing very little results. Scott and Chris both feel that part of the reason his pay per click campaigns are not being effective is because his listing is not fully optimized. On this episode Scott & Chris walkthrough the listing and give quite a few tweaks that can be done to maximize effectiveness of the natural key words and images in the listing to make the PPC campaigns as effective as they should be. If you struggled with spending too much on PPC you may find some answers to your problems on this episode.

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

• [0:03] Scott’s introduction to the podcast!
• [0:18] Who is Chris Schaeffer?
• [2:50] How you can get involved in future live events.
• [5:41] The scenario addressed today: Is my product still worth selling?
• [9:50] Chris’ thoughts about the situation: It’s a trendy product… that’s a problem - AND the price point is very low.
• [12:39] Scott’s thoughts: Is his niche the right one?
• [14:13] A tweak to the main image that could make a big difference.
• [18:00] Clarifying your target market and optimizing your listing and price point.
• [20:18] Should the seller scrap this product or are there changes he can make?
• [21:15] The importance of optimizing the listing before doing PPC campaigns.
• [23:00] What can be done to improve the sales.
• [23:34] Options for additional and related products.
• [24:11] The first steps Chris would take to optimize this product.
• [28:00] One other thing Scott would do - a reverse search on the top 3 competitors.
• [29:20] The power of using these things as learning experiences.
• [31:01] The importance of depth of market research and planning.

LINKS MENTIONED

• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/162 and www.TheAmazingSeller.com/164 - previous “Hot Seat” episodes.
• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/live - how to get involved in future live events.
• www.CamelCamelCamel.com - a site to research trends on your products.
• www.KeywordInspector.com
• www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop - Get into the live workshop next time Scott does it.