[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_3]
Chris and Nicole Parr are seven figure Amazon sellers in Sports & Outdoors, we talk about dealing with and selling to SpaceX, the value of brand and premium pricing, the challenges of German reviewers and having a customer centric focus for your product and brand.
- A year ago Chris got an email from the Boring Company wanting to buy 20k of one of Chris’ products with a link to Elon Musk’s Instagram page running around with a flame thrower
- Researched a bit more and saw that it is genuine
- Sold them a component that goes on top of the Flame Thrower and were dealing with Legal and Procurement at SpaceX
- Turned it around in 5 weeks
Dealing with SpaceX
- Played hard ball as knew the product was unique
- Did the silence and silent treatment with SpaceX
- There was a lot of press on the Flame Thrower and it went well
- It was a fun story
Backgrounds in Retail and eCommerce
- Chris’ background is retail and ecommerce
- Nicole was 25yrs in airline marketing and customer management
- Started 4 years ago in the Golden Years
- Launched with one product
- Range is very premium usually 50-100% more expensive than others in the category
- Lots of Chinese sellers in the category
- Got 27 products and bringing 15 more in this year
- Very customer brand centric with marketing and sales background
- Packaging is high-end as come from retail
- Building customer avatars and personas
Building from 7 figures to 8 figures
- Do re-packaging exercise and moving to more cardboard with matt-finish, spot-uv and gloss finish on certain elements
- Cheaper and better at recycling
- Reduce the height of packaging makes a big change in FBA fees and can save $1-$1.50 for 40k units a year
- Customer oriented with touch points, packaging, listing, colours, pricing, images
- Dealing with German reviews – fine until something goes wrong and then they go hammer and tongs
- Lucky that sometimes customers contact direct and can work with the customer to fix it
- German and Japanese quality
Pricing of Products
- Cheapest product is $7 to $65
- Lots of sales from Austria nad Switzerland as well
- Market sells for $15-20 and we sell for $30 as we use higher quality materials than your Chinese sellers
- Not afraid of competition as we have a Brand
- We are in the middle in our category in terms of brands – se spend a lot
Launch Strategy
- We turn on the early reviewer programme
- Part of Marketplace Growth Programme programme in the States as seven figure Amazon sellers
- Contentious on the Vine programme as some Chinese Sellers have access through their Vendor accounts – are lobbying for it
- Turn on best deals for two weeks – even if you have no reviews you are on page 1
- If you can get on page 1 in your category then you can sell 45 per day and the algorithm likes it
- Turn on PPC day 1 with no reviews and aggressive
- Do product targeting ads on all the main competition
- Got 78k on Instagram, 70k on Facebook
Growing Social Media
- Grown over four years
- The basics of social media are what we follow
- Regular timely content
- Engaging and good quality
- Asking questions, competitions, caption contests
- All the right hashtags and research which ones
- Have ambassadors and sponsor teams
- Use Influencers and some come to us
- Use the email list and send newsletter
- Got 10k on the email list
- Did some manychat and worked with Michelle Benton, Paul Harvey
Being off Amazon
- Everyone concerned around risk of staying on Amazon even if you are seven figure Amazon sellers
- We have a Woo commerce wordpress website which was tricky
- Shopping links in Instagram – quite small
- Drive most of the traffic to AMazon
- Less than 10% of Sales come off Amazon
- Very focussed on where money is made
Focus is Amazon
- Amazon do a lot darn right and retail is really hard
- Got business insurance (through Marketplace Growth Programme)
- Play by the Rules – no black hat for these seven figure Amazon Sellers
- Concern of being suspended is greatly reduced if you play by the rules
- Went to Amazon HQ last Summer to meet and see account manager
- They know all about you and know what you’re doing
- Most suppliers are non-China
Seller Sessions Live
- Chris is coming to London from Israel to be in Seller Sessions Live and Nicole is there for the evening
- Respect for Danny, Paul and Liran
- This is a local event and stellar speakers
- Actionable content – Chris will be actioning this on the Monday after Seller Sessions Live
