This Issue's TLDR...

• 15 of the coolest hacks that I'm using in my Amazon businesses these days.
• More advice around cash flow: lending options, extending your days payable, how to calculate free cash flow.
• Some big time additions to the Amazon Private Label Pathway.

BEST from Me

Earlier this week, I recorded a podcast with my good friend Adam Heist.

In advance of the recording, we were kicking around topic ideas for the session. I had just wrapped up my "Cash is King" series in this newsletter, so we were initially focused on doing a deeper dive into all things finance-related for Amazon businesses.

But, while road tripping over the week and having hours of quiet time in the car to think, it occurred to me that:

1. Finance is one of those topics that can be a snooze-fest.
2. People love tactics and strategies that they can immediately use in their businesses.

So, I took a metaphorical U-turn while road tripping, and decided to just share with Adam's audience a bunch of the cool "hacks" that I've been using in my businesses.

Hence, the topic of the podcast session: 15 Road Trip Hacks (should be released next week).

The hacks are available on my Amazon Private Label Pathway page.

Here's the rundown though, because I don't want you all to have to do extra work to track them down:

• HACK 1: Amazon Posts Infinite Content
• HACK 2: Stack Amazon Influencers + Attribution for greater bonuses
• HACK 3: Use ShipmentmakerPro's FC Scorecard to avoid stock-outs by avoiding FCs with backlogs FCs with backlogs
• HACK 4: Activate Instock Headstart to improve availability
• HACK 5: Use SQP Shipping Speed data to identify best ASINs for PEDs (I discussed this in last week's newsletter, ICYMI)
• HACK 6: Determine the exact price that you need to recover the Buy Box that you need to recover the Buy Box (Also previously explain in this newsletter)
• HACK 7: Adjust your main image to a 5:6 ratio if the majority of your 5:6 ratio if the majority of your customers are mobile shoppers
• HACK 8: Use MobileCards Chrome extension to preview mobile shopping extension to preview mobile shopping experience
• HACK 9: Use Oxolo to create videos for your PDPs in <15min (videos = 9.7% sales lift)
• HACK 10: Stop Amazon from selling damaged inventory to customers via Warehouse Deals and hurting your reviews with FBA Damaged Opt-Out
• HACK 11: Earn list-price strike-through (and a 3.9% sales lift) by setting Standard=List and run 24hr coupon at 50% off.
• HACK 12: Cut your return rate by 50% or more, with Product Lifecycle Support (PRO TIP: Use my guys over at OnSite Support for this)
• HACK 13: Increase your PPC ad spend limit to extend your payback period by 30+ days
• HACK 14: Use LandingCube to qualify and tag traffic, and get customer emails
• HACK 15: Get cheaper inventory funding for your business through SBA 7a Express LOC and Securities-Backed Loans.

Of the hacks above, I think my favorite have been Hacks 2 (Amazon Influencers) and 14 (Landing Cube).

I've struggled in my businesses to put systems in place around Influencer Marketing, maybe because it always felt expensive and transactional. But since I've been stacking Attribution links with my Influencer outreach and offering them a greater sales share (funded by the Brand Referral Bonus), it feels like I'm finally building relationships with these influencers.

Another thing that I've struggled with and, honestly, ignored, has been building customer email lists. For one thing, email marketing isn't my forte. So, it never made sense to me to expend a ton of effort building an email list that I wouldn't be well-suited to monetize. But...LandingCube has made it so easy.

BEST from Everyone Else

I know I already did a 3-part series on cash flow in this newsletter. But...I CAN'T STOP thinking about cash flow for my Amazon businesses.

Maybe it's the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon (once you see something once, you see it everywhere). Maybe I just like money.

Anyway, here are some other smart people talking about money.

• The Dangers of Revenue-Based Loans. My friend Bill D'Alessandro (CEO of Natural Dog Food Company) might be the one person out there that gets more fired up about dubious financial products than I do. I did some similar interest rate math in a previous newsletter issue, but this is worth hammering home.

Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA Ecommerce founders - this is an intervention. 🛑 STOP taking "fixed fee" merchant cash advance loans from Wayflier, 8Fig, Shopify Capital, and more. 💰 The entire biz model of these lenders is exploiting the fact that you can't do interest rate math. That ends now - read on...… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1691846376148328730 11:16 AM • Aug 16, 2023 28 Retweets 205 Likes Read 31 replies

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• A Playbook to Improve Your Supplier Payment Terms. Remember when I talked about Cash Conversion Cycles? You know, this formula: CCC = Days Sales Outstanding + Days Inventory Outstanding - Days Payable Outstanding. In case it's not obvious from the math, or didn't read that newsletter issue, you want to increase Days Payable Outstanding. @Ecommercejack shares a great strategy for doing so, which I'll be testing.

Jack @ecommercejack We persuaded our top-tier FBA supplier to give us Net 75 terms + scored a 4% discount on every invoice. The playbook: 10:41 AM • Jul 28, 2023 2 Retweets 14 Likes Read 3 replies

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• It's All About The Free Cash Flow Margin. Charlatans on the internet love to post Amazon Revenue screenshots. Most of you all reading this are Serious People (Logan Roy voice) so I don't have to lecture you on how meaningless those screenshots are. Encouragingly, more and more people are sharing full P&Ls and/or profit figures for their Amazon businesses (guilty). But...that's still not the whole story. Product businesses consistently have funds tied up in inventory, so the *real* measure of a good Amazon business is how much cash is ending up in your bank account at the end of each month.

Andrew Lynch @andrewglynch Free Cash Flow (FCF) is probably the most important measure of the health of your business. Think of FCF as the amount your bank account increases by if you run your business normally for the next year. Importantly, FCF is not the same as 'profit.' Profit is an accounting… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1691366163995836416 https://twitter.com/danieljthomason/status/1691136076231118848 Daniel Thomason @danieljthomason @andrewglynch what is free cash flow, and why is it so important for a business? 3:28 AM • Aug 15, 2023 16 Retweets 104 Likes Read 2 replies

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Updates to the Amazon Private Label Pathway

Since the topic of this newsletter issue was hacks, I thought I would double down on that topic and add a few cool things to the Amazon Private Label Pathway that will help you to compress time and get ahead:

• Top 5 Newsletters for Amazon Private Labelers
• How to Launch & Rank on Amazon FBA 2024 // Google Ads for Amazon MASTERCLASS 2.0: The game is changing. My good friend Adam Heist drops the latest strategies to drive organic rank on Amazon in 2024 and beyond.
• 51 Hacks to Get a Competitive Edge Selling on Amazon: This is a webinar hosted by Helium10 and Kevin King from a couple years ago. Some of the hacks are dated/obsolete, but there are still some gems in here.

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Back Story on the Amazon Private Label Pathway, ICYMI...

A few months back, I had a small group of coaching clients that were at the same point in their Amazon seller journeys.

I found myself answering the same questions, and pointing them to the same resources, so, in true Amazon fashion, I asked myself "What's the 1-to-Many solution here?" and built a Notion page of helpful resources, which I've called "Amazon Private Label Pathway."

You can get access to it here: https://auxo.gumroad.com/l/amazonpathway (it's free; but if you want to buy me a beer, I won't object)​

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Amazon Questions? Amazon isn't easy. Everyone needs a little help from a friend sometimes. If you ever have a tough Amazon question, I'm only a phone call away. Let's Chat

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