A 2020 interview between Ryan Daniel Moran and Jeff (from Capitalism.com) discussing strategies to survive and grow on Amazon during the COVID-19 pandemic. They describe outreach to Shark Tank entrepreneurs, common listing optimization gaps, pandemic-era sales variance, and a practical tip: using Amazon Storefront Source Tags to track and scale external ad traffic.
You were just advising some of the sharks from Shark Tank on what's working now on Amazon. So I want to ask you what the heck is working right now on Amazon and also how people can make sense of the crazy market right now. I mean, we have people who have doubled and tripled since COVID So I want to ask you all about this.
We came up with how to survive and thrive on Amazon during the coronavirus pandemic report. And we just sent it to some of our favorite sharks and luckily one of them responded.
And what was the message that you sent them that got their attention?
We sent them the report and we said, you know, the PDF report and just said, hey, I know it's a crazy time right now on Amazon and a lot of people are hurting. It was right when like all the warehouses on Amazon were delayed. And so we sent it to them, I think, right at the right time and said, I know probably a lot of your companies are hurting. Here's a free report that might help them during this time. Also, if there's anything else we can do just to support, like, I'm a big fan of the show, I'm a big fan of you, blah, blah, blah. And you know, whatever we can do to support, we're here, we'd be happy to help.
It was, go ahead and pass this on to your people and then if we can help, you know, feel free to reach out. And they did reach out back to you, is that right?
Yeah, exactly. You know, their businesses were hardly different from anyone else on Amazon that we talked to, but they have the same challenges that everyone else has. Like listing optimization is usually, you know, still lacking like, that they're missing simple things like video and having the shark be featured on the page and letting people know that like, you know, just some of the fundamental stuff was really. Because I think they're just so busy just like everyone else. Like, they were, you know, really busy.
Right. I mean, they're like, they're like, just because they have gotten a $200,000 deal from Kevin O' Leary or Lori Greiner does not mean that they've gone and built teams of 40 people. It's still still like four person shows, sometimes two person shows. And so they're overlooking the same things that most entrepreneurs are overlooking.
Yeah, exactly. And one of them even said, people think that just because we got a deal on Shark Tank that I'm a millionaire and all the work stops and they just do it all for you. But they're like, it's far from that. It's definitely a lot easier and helpful. You have an amazing resource that can open doors, but they still got to run the whole show and it's totally their business to build their own teams and do all the work. So it was interesting to learn that.
So how many of them were doing well on Amazon versus trying to do whatever channel they were doing when they got the deal on Shark Tank? And then what did they end up doing with your advice?
I mean, a lot of them, you know, were just doing, you know, 10 to 50k a month. Typically on Amazon, it's not like they're doing like a million a month or a quarter million a month. So for the most part they were, you know, sub 100 because they had either retail channels or their own website. Shark will plug them in with different resources and stuff like that. A lot of them had a lot of room for improvement. It's not like they were the number one or even the number five player in their niche. So it was interesting to see that they need just as much help as anybody.
Jeff, is there anything that is working particularly well right now that might have been different than a year ago? Because now we've got all this increased volume and momentum flooding the channel. Is there anything that's changed or that's working better than it used to?
Amazon's always rolling out new features. You just need to stay on top of it and use that data. So one is Amazon Storefront Source Tags. Sounds like, you know, kind of technical or whatever, but basically it's a way that you can finally track your external traffic that you're sending to Amazon and track the conversions, the sales through that. So, you know, that way you can, you know, predictably spend money off because clients used to. A couple years ago, I don't want to spend any dollars on a Facebook ad that goes to Amazon because it's a black hole. I don't know if it's profitable or not, but that that's changed now. So there's ways to do that. It's called Storefront Source tag. So. So that's really helped us scale with a lot of our clients because they were already spending money on Google Ads or Facebook or Instagram and now we can help them measure the results and then scale it.
Could you give us a 30 second overview of how that works?
Basically, it's just a fancy link that Amazon will generate for you. So it's just a fancy link that.
When you run the Facebook ad, Amazon will spit out that storefront source tag and then you just put that in the ad, and that's the link that goes. But because it's got the. It's one of those long, ugly links that's got all these mechanisms to the.
UTM code or whatever, it basically has a way of tracking where it came from. And then it'll report your seller central account.
Exactly. It's very similar to the UTM tracking. Yep.
Beautiful.
That's a huge opportunity.
