[ BDSN ] šŸ“š Meet the Amazon millionaire maker

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šŸ ONE of the GOATS is in the HOUSE TODAY
  • šŸ† This weekā€™s Dream 100 inductee

  • šŸ§Ŗ Vertical or horizontal vids, which is better?

  • šŸ–¼ļø Great AI image editor for sellers

  • šŸ›ļø Prelude to what could happen to TikTok

  • šŸ•µšŸ½ Watch listing teardowns next Tuesday

  • šŸ‘€ Buying decisions made in blink of an eye

  • šŸŽ« Tour an Amazon fulfillment center

AMAZON GIVETH and AMAZON WARNETH:

šŸŽ GIVETH: Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President of Amazon, says that during April Amazon will charge sellers the new FBA low-inventory-level fees, but at the end of the month, they will credit back all low-inventory-level fees charged. Amazon wants to help sellers learn in real-time if they need to make adjustments to avoid the fee in the future.

āš ļø WARNETH: If you are using services like Nemoship, SMP or Nineyard that trick Amazonā€™s system and create ā€œabandoned shipmentsā€ or use ā€œfakeā€ ship from addresses so you can ship to just one FC nearby to save money, you are now officially playing with fire. Amazon has warned they will start charging you penalties for this kind of work-around activity.

STUMP BEZOS

13.3% of items purchased in brick-and-mortar stores were returned in 2023, per the National Retail Federation. What percentage of online merchandise sales were returned in 2023?

[ Answer at bottom of email ]

Welcome Traian Turcu to the Billion Dollar Dream 100

Twice a month I announce a new member of the Billion Dollar Dream 100. These are the people you should follow and get to know. Theyā€™re announced in no particular order.

Traian Turcu is todayā€™s inductee into the Billion Dollar Dream 100.

If you have not been playing the Amazon game for a while, you probably have never heard of Traian Turcu. But if you know, YOU KNOW.

He only travels for fun (rarely for business), so you wonā€™t meet him at any shows. He doesn't guest on podcasts, webinars or summits.

But a few of you may have been lucky enough to go to one of his three sold out bootcamps in Las Vegas or meet him at a Cabo mastermind prior to 2019.

Traian doesnā€™t participate in e-com social media either. Instead, he keeps his head down in his home office in Romania playing mad scientist figuring out what works and what doesnā€™t to get an edge selling on Amazon.

He sold his first business, a single SKU hair brush heā€™d been selling for 8 months for $500,000 in 2016 before it was cool to do that.

Then he built a second Amazon business and sold it for $7 million a little over a year later. Since then he has created many more successful brands and businesses, often as open case studies.

He releases highly customized specific-use Google Chrome extensions for selling that he only gives to his private accelerator monthly mastermind members. They are a secret weapon in the arsenal for many top sellers and service providers.

Traian is the epitome of a tactical genius in the Amazon marketplace, THE guru to 8 and 9 figure sellers. Now picture, if you will, how extraordinary it would be if I could convince him to join us in Iceland for BDSS 11 in the spring of 2025!

šŸ§Ŗ VERTICAL or HORIZONTAL VIDEO - WHICH is BETTER?

Dream 100 member Mansour Norouzi at Incrementum Digital recently ran a theme based Sponsored Brand experiment comparing the old horizontal video ads to the new vertical video ad format (the ones that look like TikTok).

His big ah hah moment: the old horizontal video had a 257.8% higher CTR and 43.6% lower ACOS than itā€™s vertical counterpart.

He recommends you do your own testing, with vigilance to negations.

šŸ‘€ BUYING DECISIONS in BLINK of an EYE

Issac Gross of IG PPC recently took a look at Amazon Marketing Cloud data (only available if you are running DSP) for a $30 Health and Household product on one of his clientā€™s accounts and noticed something very interesting.

Almost 13K orders happened between 1-10 minutes, with 9K of those happening in less than 1 minute! That means decisions to buy on Amazon are made a whopping 26% of the time for this product in less than one minute.

This emphasizes how much you need to have a clear and precise listing to give shoppers all they need to know in the blink of an eye, as they are making decisions super quick.

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šŸ–¼ļø GREAT AI IMAGE EDITOR for SELLERS

Photoroom is a cool tool lets you create and edit professional product and lifestyle images for free with AI from mobile and desktop.

  • Erase any background

  • Create backgrounds instantly with AI

  • Expand images beyond their borders with AI

  • Remove and replace objects with a swipe

  • Edit hundreds of photos in seconds

Grow your revenue with the predictive intelligence

Black Crow builds individual AI models for brands using 400+ signals from your websiteā€™s traffic behavior & purchase behavior.

Their newest tech is called Predictive Offer, which re-triggers your pop-up offer to high intent shoppers with the highest chance at conversion.

Itā€™s free to try for 30 days and after that itā€™s a monthly contract you can cancel anytime.

If your brand does over $2M/year in revenue on Shopify, Black Crow will give you a $100 Amazon gift card just to speak with their team.

šŸ›ļø PRELUDE to what COULD HAPPEN IN USA?

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has introduced a dedicated shopping application called Douyin Mall in China. This new application, an offshoot of Douyinā€”the Chinese counterpart of TikTokā€”aims to carve a niche in the bustling e-commerce landscape of mainland China.

Launched for Android users, Douyin Mall promotes itself with the tagline, "Choose great bargains with little effort," although it has not been made available for iOS devices yet.

Douyin describes the app as an augmentation of its ecosystem, aiming to improve the overall shopping experience for its user base. This initiative represents an evolution of Douyin's e-commerce strategy, which began in 2019 with an integrated click-and-buy feature within the video-sharing platform, mirroring the introduction of TikTok Shop in the United States.

By launching Douyin Mall as a standalone application, ByteDance positions itself in direct competition with established e-commerce platforms in China such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo. This move suggests a deliberate strategy to diversify its offerings beyond video-integrated shopping experiences.

The launch of Douyin Mall raises questions about ByteDance's broader ambitions, particularly regarding the potential introduction of a similar shopping platform in the US market, especially in scenarios where TikTok faces regulatory challenges.

The deployment of Douyin Mall could be a strategic test, gauging the response from merchants and consumers in China, which might inform future expansions, including into the US market.

This challenges the notion that platforms like TikTok cannot become major players in the e-commerce sector, hinting at a more integrated future between social media and online shopping.

LAST TWO BDSN NEWSLETTERS ā€¦
April 1 ā†’ āœļø Zeus AI can get & change reviews
March 28 ā†’ šŸ’°$120K in free Google ads to Amazon

LATEST AM/PM PODCAST hosted by Kevin ā€¦

šŸŽ«  TOUR an AMAZON FULFILLMENT CENTER

As an Amazon seller, itā€™s pretty fascinating to go behind-the-scenes and see the inner workings of one of Amazonā€™s massive fulfillment centers. I highly recommend you try to take a tour of one sometime if you can.

Back before Amazon starting offering these tours, I know a couple sellers who tour a job with Amazon for a few days just to see how the FCs worked.

Amazon offers free 60-90 minute tours at select centers in North America, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

You have to register in advance and be ready to do some walking (some facilities are as big as 28 American football fields or soccer pitches).

If you donā€™t live near a fulfillment center that offers in-person tours, Amazon also offers live 30-minute virtual tours on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

šŸ•µšŸ½  FREE LISTING TEAR DOWN next TUESDAY

SwiftStart and Oddit want to revolutionize your approach to Amazon listings.

On April 9th at 9:00 AM PST they are doing a deep dive into the art and science of crafting captivating listings that convert.

šŸ” Main Objective: We'll be dissecting poorly performing Amazon listings to uncover the secrets behind their lackluster performance.

šŸŽŸļø Free Admission: Register for this exclusive event to secure your spot.

šŸ„³Submit a Listing: Share the listings that you'd want reviewed by adding the ASIN in this google form.

šŸ”„ MORE HOT PICKS šŸ”„

šŸ„ƒ PARTING SHOT

ā€œLive your life the way you want, not how society says you are supposed to.ā€

šŸ€ Enjoy the FINAL FOUR this weekend. How did your bracket do?

See you Monday, same bat time, same bat channel.

The answer to todayā€™s STUMP BEZOS is
$247 billion worth equal to 17.6%