This Issue's TLDR...

• 14 hacks to increase your traffic, improve your conversion rate, increase your average order value, and improve your cash flow.
• A potentially bad omen if you've been getting too fast and loose with your main images on Amazon.
• How to secure better payment terms with your Chinese suppliers, in light of macroeconomic conditions.

​

👉 Did someone forward you this newsletter? First of all, give them a crisp high five when you see them. Second, head over here to subscribe and read past issues.

SPONSOR Sellerise ​ I rarely hear about Sellerise in the conversation about top Amazon tools. And maybe I shouldn't be surprised -- they don't buy booths at events or trade shows, they don They just quietly have one of the best, most feature rich, highest value-to-cost toolsets for Amazon sellers. I might have mentioned the enhancements that they've made to Keyword Hunter Pro and Keyword Re-Ranker Pro in this newsletter a while back. Well, I'm mentioning it again because 1) I've been geeking out over both tools recently and 2) I have an upcoming newsletter issue that dives into both. Anyway, hit the link below if you want to give Sellerise a test drive. Get 15% Off Your Ticket​

BEST from Me

Earlier this week, I attended ASGTG24 in Brooklyn, NY, and presented at the event.

I had entertained speaking about a few different topics (of course, Cash Flow was one of those topics), but organizer Ed Rosenberg steered me toward presenting some hacks.

Ed has been running the ASGTG event for 10 years, so he knows the audience well and: Boy was he right!

Much to my surprise, the speaking hall was PACKED for my session and, after my presentation, I probably fielded close to two dozen questions from event attendees.

It was humbling, and awesome.

Anyway, since I know many Best@Amazon readers couldn't attend ASGTG, I'm sharing my "New Year, New Hacks" in these week's newsletter.

The full slide deck from my presentation is available on the Amazon Private Label Pathway page. I'll be adding the video recording in a week or two.

Without further ado, here are the hacks, with some of my talking points:

Traffic Hacks

• HACK 1: Social Media Promo Codes
  • Yes, this promotional feature has been available within Seller Central for 10+ years.
  • But, what I've found in the past year of testing them is that they can be highly effective (I suspect this is because of growing dis-use from other sellers, with all the new, shiny promo options that Amazon has made available).
  • Key determinants of how effective SMPCs will be for you: (1) Discount % (I've found that you need to be north of 50%), (2) Category and ASP (Amazon Associates naturally like products that sell well and carry high commissions), and (3) pre-existing Associate/Affiliate relationships.
• HACK 2: Buy a Media Asset
  • I talked about this a few weeks prior during a webinar hosted by Intentwise.
  • The degree of difficulty on this hack is High. First you need to find the right asset (which will take time) and then you need to operate and monetize it (probably means hiring someone).
• HACK 3: Refresh your Ad Creatives with "UGC"
  • Visual assets and ad creatives that are authentic, and feature real customers, seem to be performing best these days.
  • But, "authentic" is a relative term, and your can imitate authenticity by using tools like tokcomment to simulate social media interactions between creators and followers.
• HACK 4: Get Backlinks from High Authority Websites
  • Website SEO is outside my wheelhouse -- and I told the ASGTG audience as much -- but I'm trying to learn. Actually, I'm trying to skip the line a bit by copying others.
  • One person that I've been "copying" is Connor Showler on Twitter/X, who is constantly sharing sneaky ways to get high authority backlinks for your website. Give him a follow.

Average Order Value & Pricing Hacks

• HACK 5: Use Savings Messages in your Virtual Bundles
  • Technically, this is against ToS, but it's customer-friendly and effective, so Choose Your Own Adventure.
• HACK 6: Adapt your Promotions Strategy to Product Price Elasticity
  • The slide deck has a nice, clean 2x2 decision matrix, but to summarize:
    • High Contribution Margin, Low Price Elasticity: Avoid discounts and drive traffic instead
    • High Contribution Margin, High Price Elasticity: Run consistent discounts and promotions
    • Low Contribution Margin, Low Price Elasticity: Only discount if overstock or EOL
    • Low Contribution Margin, High Price Elasticity: Only discount if launching or re-ranking

Conversion Hacks

• HACK 7: Optimize Swatches on your Variations
  • Start by choosing a variation theme that allows swatches
  • Once you have swatches, play around with different file upload sizes. Standard swatch size rendering on Amazon is 60x60 pixels, but it IS possible to get 200x200 pixels.
• HACK 8: Force Variation Order on PDP by Prepending Variation Name with a Number
  • Generally speaking, variations appear in alphabetical order. (There are exceptions)
  • If you find your ASIN families displaying child variants in alphabetical order, add a number to the front of the variant name that you want to appear first.
• HACK 9: Create Image Stacks with Visual Flow
  • On mobile, Amazon repeats your image stack before showing your A+ content.
  • Create your image stack with this in mind, crafting images that "flow" together as a customer scrolls down the page.
• HACK 10: Create Short Product Videos in Minutes Using Visla
  • ​I posted on LinkedIn about this a couple months back.
  • Very useful for mid- and long-tail selection that you don't want to invest time or money into for video content (Reminder: Adding a video to your PDP increases sales by +9.7%).
• HACK 11: Eliminate Add-to-Cart Leakage by Toggling Price
  • I wrote about this in Best@Amazon a few weeks back, and it was an exclusive issue that only went out to subscribers.
  • If you missed it, but you're subscribed to Best@Amazon now, reply to this email and I'll send you the full write-up.

Cash Flow Hacks

• HACK 12: Get Payment Terms from your Credit Card Company
  • I spoke about this in a previous presentation, and h/t to Evan Swanson for point this out, but you can pay $250 annually for a Plum Card from Amex and get 60 day payment terms (so, essentially, 90 days to pay back some that you purcchase on Day 1 of your credit card cycle).
  • Pair this with Melio Payments to pay suppliers.
• HACK 13: Increase your PPC ad spend limit to extend your payback period by 30+ days
  • This one isn't new to most of you long-time subscribers. But, if it is, check out my 15 Roadtrip Hacks.
• HACK 14: Get Cheaper Inventory Funding for your Business via Asset-Backed Lending
  • There are a few different options here, and it's often the case that you won't qualify. But, I do help brand clients with this, so if you're interested, grab some time with me and I can quickly assess whether this is a viable path for you.

There you go!

My New Year, New Hacks.

Admittedly, some weren't new to many of you. But, to the broader public, they were eye-opening.

Apply these in your businesses in 2024, and keep on crushing it.
​

SPONSOR Prosper Show I'm excited to report that I'll be speaking at Prosper Show this year! My topic is The Miracle of Negative Working Capital -- And Other Ways to Improve Your Cash Flow (big surprise) and I'll be presenting at 10am on March 6. If you're attending Prosper in March, drop me a note so that we can get together! Use promo code SANAR1100OFFSPEAK to get $100 off an all-access pass.

BEST from Everyone Else

Best from the B@A Community

For the past 12-18 months, a number of thought leaders prominent personalities in the Amazon space have pushed hard in favor of "coloring outside the lines" with respect to Amazon's main image guidelines.

Specifically, these folks have advocated in favor of design overlays to the main image that include relevant keywords, reinforce a USP (e.g., Made in the USA), or otherwise "stop the scroll." Which is a violation of the highlighted section below.

The arguments in favor of doing this are generally some combination of:

1. It works really well in improving CTR, and rank (I don't dispute this);
2. Lots of other brands and sellers are doing it, so if you don't, you'll fall behind; and
3. Even though it's technically against ToS, Amazon doesn't enforce this and you won't get caught.

Let's talk about item #3.

The thing about enforcement gaps (or, infinite money cheat codes as the kids say) is that they eventually close.

And, thanks to B@A reader and one of my favorite Amazon nerds to geek out with, James McConnell, there are indicators that Amazon might be ramping up enforcement of main image abuse.

Here's what James received from Amazon in a recent SeSu case:

After review your issue, we checked the sources in deep and removed the ""INCORRECT_HC/INCORRECT/Image does not represent correct product"", kindly wait 24 to 48 hours for the changes to happen.

Additional Information: Altering the bouncer properties doesn't guarantee the images will be live on site.

This will be considered as Text Logo Graphics Watermark, which might cause suppression in the future.

The TLGW attribute is present in the image if:

• There is any graphic, text, logo or watermark that is not part of the product or that does not represent the actual product.
• There is an inset image.
• Images that are composited from multiple images of products shown at "different graphically edited scale (size)" are considered as TLGW.

The main image should show the sale product without any graphical elements.

We would request you check the "entire image" and upload main image that are in accordance with all Amazon Image standards through vendor/seller central to avoid future issues.

In case you don't speak Amazon, this basically means they have deployed a model to visually scan main images for unusual graphic properties and tag them with an attribute for broad (or targeted) enforcement.

Right now, it seems fairly benign. But, don't be surprised if Amazon randomly ramps up enforcement in advance of Prime Day or next Q4.

[As a related aside, and before you ask...yes, I'm still going to be "enhancing" my main images to maximize CTR. There's still juice here, and the risk-reward trade-off is still favorable.]

Best from X

Killer cash flow tip here from Sean Frank (founder of Ridge Wallets):

Sean Frank @SeanEcom 2024 tip of the day, day 1: Interest rates in China are about half that of the west. If you do business in China, ask your partners for aggressive payment terms. Them holding the debt is cheaper than you using a line of credit. 3:53 PM • Jan 1, 2024 2 Retweets 131 Likes Read 16 replies

​

Updates to the Amazon Private Label Pathway

My full presentation from ASGTG has been added to the Amazon Private Label Pathway.

In the coming weeks, I'll also be adding the live recording of my presentation, so you can follow along and get the voiceover.

*

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)​

​

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

​​