Transitioning From Q4 to Q1 With your Listings and Strategy with Keith O’Brien

We are talking about transitioning from Q4 to Q1 for your Amazon or eCommerce business. It’s a fun one and I recorded this with Keith O’Brien today on on a Black Friday, right after Thanksgiving. Keith will be giving you some ideas and tidbits on what you should do for your listing and your eCommerce business now that Q4 is basically over and what to do going into the new year. Let’s tune in.

√ Keith’s agency – Page.One
√ Keith’s GFAVIP profile
√ Macy’s Day parade
√ Amazon’s new virtual bundles
√ Crossborder Matchmaker

Thank you, Keith. I appreciate you sharing with us on the show and he’s an awesome guy. It’s been really cool. Happy Holidays to you Keith and family. Happy Holidays everyone!

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gfa285

[00:00:00] Episode 285 on December 24th, 2019 we are talking transitioning from Q four Q one for your Amazon or eCommerce business. It’s a fun one. Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice. And now your host, Michael Michelini.

[00:00:28] How is everybody doing today? I would hope everybody’s happy. Probably not on the internet much. Seems like everybody’s already kind of relaxing after fourth quarter at least. It will be going on Christmas Eve. So obviously e-commerce sales might not be hopping, but maybe it was retail stores are jam packed for the last minute shoppers, but most of you, I assume, are online sellers.

[00:00:54] At least that’s what I almost hope. I mean, that’s the future, right? I don’t know. I guess it’ll always be last minute shoppers, but it’ll probably be delivered by drones on Amazon. So. Well, 285 shows. I like that. Number two, eight, five nice and round. Get towards the end of the year. If you’re on our email newsletter, it’s out Thursday nights.

[00:01:15] We try to talk about the podcast and a week, some news, some fun stuff. I’ll be in China at a time. This show is online. I’m recording the intro while I’m in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and we recorded this with Keith O’Brian today on, on a Black Friday, right after Thanksgiving is when we recorded this one. There is never a day off and our team got this off on Christmas Eve, but back to the newsletter, we did just ask people to fill out a survey year end 2019 only into 2020 survey if you are not a fan of email newsletters or if you are and don’t even know, we have one, check it out.

[00:01:54] globalfromasia.com/subscribe we try and put some email newsletter only things, but today I’ll share something I did ask for is some survey feedback globalfromasia.com/survey it’s kind of a long form. I know, but you don’t got to fill all of it out. If you listen to podcasts, maybe it’s your favorite part of this show.

[00:02:15] Is it podcasts you like? Is it newsletters? Is it blogs? Is it a YouTube videos or reviews? Now is your time to let us know. Let me know. Let April and our team know. Let the other people on our team know. I would love to hear

[00:02:30] from you, and you have the option. You can be anonymous or you could leave your name and email.

[00:02:36] Maybe we’ll contact it, or maybe we’ll give you some freebie. Also, will be back on Cross Border Summit 2020 fifth annual crazy time is flying here. But without further ado, we will get into the show. Let’s get in with Keith O’Brien and giving you some ideas and tidbits, maybe what you should do for your listing and your eCommerce business.

[00:02:55] Now that Q4 is basically over and what to do going into the new year.

[00:03:00] Are you looking to get some investment exposure in the new year for Amazon and eCommerce businesses? Maybe to either hedge your bet with your own Amazon business or you want to do more of a passive investment? Partners and I, Alpha Rock Capital are a great place to look.

[00:03:15] We’re doing a capital round right now. Actually, we’re doing a lot of webinars and we have a podcast. I also help hosting, and we all have around open in 2020 early 2020 just to a few investors we’re looking for no pressure. We’re a low

[00:03:30] pressure, we’re actually more exclusive. We’d like to know a little bit more about you.

[00:03:34] Check it out at alpharockcapital.com  for the next webinar or go to /webinar. Thank you everybody for tuning in to another global from Asia podcast. This one, Keith is a, we’ve been in touch for a couple of years. Should’ve have gotten you on the show. Finally it got you on the show. We also, you are also one of our more popular speakers at some of our events, like Cross Border Matchmaker back in Watson Bay, Shenzhen and

[00:04:00] 2017 I think. Time is flying. It’s a. My goodness, it seems like a lifetime ago. Right. And, uh, you know, we’ve always, we’ve chatted about the industry and, uh, it’s been a pleasure to get to know you over the years. So Keith O’Brien from Page One, which is a optimization specialized company. You’re based in Florida, right?

[00:04:21] That’s correct. Uh, down just South of Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, Florida. Awesome. I don’t know if I told you, I think you’re near my, my, my family in Port St

[00:04:30] Lucie. So, yeah. Not too far. A couple of hours, uh, up the coast. Yup. Yup. Very cool. So there, do you want to share a little bit about, about your agency Page One.

[00:04:41] Sure. Yeah. So Page One, you know, we’ve been around the space now on Amazon for, I guess, going a little over five years, which, you know, as you know, Mike, uh, that’s a, that’s a lifetime. It is a long time, uh, in this space. And, uh,

[00:05:00] uh, we started in the, um. We started back as a service provider with a company called. I love to review back in the day.

[00:05:10] I remember, I was going to mention, yeah, yeah. And then, um, we’ve, uh, transitioned into really Page One’s a full service agency. Uh, we do, uh, everything our are one off and individualized services are things like listing optimization, uh, EBC and, uh,

[00:05:30] uh, a plus design. We do product photography, uh, in house here.

[00:05:34] Uh, we have a full ad management team and we just launched full service brand management back, uh, about three or four months ago. So, you know, we do, we do all the bits and pieces outside of getting your inventory from your manufacturer. Great. Yeah, I mean, of course there’s so much to that, you know, there’s so many different skills and personalities and people and designers and creative process in there.

[00:06:00] We were chatting before recording about that, so yeah. Hats off to you and the team there for that. Um, yeah. And, uh, we, uh. I was joking, but I know Turkey. I mean, we just, you just, I didn’t have any Turkey either, but we’re recording this right on black Friday, right after Thanksgiving. And, uh, your morning, my night here.

[00:06:21] Um, so we’re, you know, today’s show, I thought it’d be kind of cool to talk about, I think there’s a lot of talks about Q4, but I was thinking were the show

[00:06:30] come out in December? So I’m thinking it’ll be by now, if he didn’t give, you’re not ready for Q4 here. You’re done. So, um, uh, basically what people do after the big, you know, the huge Q4 or everybody’s counting her cash, you know, um, what we do after that going into Q1.

[00:06:48] Um, but before we get into that main topic, you know, I thought you were mentioning the history of, of today, of black Friday is recording it. You know, you S you know the conversation about, you know, how

[00:07:00] e-commerce owes the traditional retail right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, it’s, it’s funny because, you know, black Friday, if you’d go back to like its origin, it was like a, it came out of the, like the mid to late 18 hundreds, and it really was talking about, uh, the crash of the US gold market.

[00:07:18] Um, and, uh, as a new, moving forward, it got termed as day of spending funds of money, uh, in retail, you know, and, uh, I think the

[00:07:30] Uh, well, it’s not the exact history of it for sure. You know, I think if you look back to the early days of like when Macy’s and Gimbles, where, where the, you know, kind of the dominant retail players, you know, Macy’s created, uh, the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade, right?

[00:07:46] And it was all really about uh, the retailers, uh, seeing this opportunity, obviously everyone’s started spending, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been conditioned by both retail and the

[00:08:00] media and our culture, right? That we just have to spend just massive amounts of money during this period of time. And, and, uh, so Macy’s really started the parade, you know, well, it really wasn’t for the kids bike, you know.

[00:08:14] It was to get people in the holiday spirit, which in America, that’s consumerism, right? Uh, to get them into that spirit earlier. Right? So it’s really interesting. Um, and, uh, so little, a little history lesson, but I think, you know, in

[00:08:30] e-commerce, you know, yes, we have cyber Monday that was created years and years later, just about 14, 15 years ago.

[00:08:36] But uh, we as e-commerce sellers, we really have, you know, we talk about, we kind of battle with retail a lot, you know, but the reality is, you know, the buying habits of consumers, we really need to credit retailers for, uh, for creating that. Um, and, uh, so they were the ones that kinda moved it along and moved it forward and, you know,

[00:09:00] created that to begin with.

[00:09:02] True. I mean, that just, that you know, I’m in here in Asia all the time and they can’t wait here. Even it’s like Halloween and they’re sticking up Christmas stuff. I’m like, can we finish at least Halloween before the Christmas stuff goes up in the store? Like seriously? There’s always the point of, you know, are you tacky?

[00:09:23] If you put your lights up on your house before Thanksgiving for Christmas, right. I always, you know, it was back when I was raised, it was

[00:09:30] always a, this weekend as we started putting up lights. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what, it’s funny, you know, like, uh, we have a lot of clients in Australia and you know, there’s countries that don’t have Thanksgiving that now from a retail and online standpoint, they, they, uh, they recognize black Friday.

[00:09:50] That’s crazy. Wow. Yeah. Well, it’s all about the money, right? It’s all about business. And then the consumerism, you know,

[00:10:00] I’m not, I’m moving right now and I just. Don’t know how there’s all this stuff. Well, I guess especially the kids, there’s just stuff. I don’t want stuff, but at this way, that’s what, uh, you know, of course, retailers want, and e-commerce sellers want, um, to buy stuff.

[00:10:16] So, so we’re, um, so people are hopefully making some money. Hopefully the listeners had a good Q4 when the show is online and, you know, we are, um. Talking now about

[00:10:30] what are some maybe some mistakes people made that their faith, well I could also bring up some, but of course maybe I was there in a small meetup yesterday, Chiang Mai, and there was a guy out of stock already, but it’s like a good problem, right?

[00:10:44] I mean, that’s one issue. What are some other, you know, blunders or things you see that I always, I always, I always say that you could, you could tell a seasoned seller from the new seller by how stressful they feel. Q4 is right. So that the newer seller tends to

[00:11:00] put a ton of stress on themselves, really unnecessarily about Q4.

[00:11:05] Um, and sure, like if you’ve got your first product or second product coming to market, and you know, you’re able to get it in there, you know, by early November and start getting, you know, getting moving, you know, you may. You may catch a little bit of the wave, you know, of the increased traffic. But, uh, I think the first mistake is, is how, how much stress sellers

[00:11:30] unnecessarily put on themselves around this time of year.

[00:11:32] It’s just, it’s just unnecessary. So that’s number one. Um, you know, I think, uh, the leading into Q4 is really where you need to do your work. And. So, you know, usually to start our busiest time of year as an agency, honestly, is, uh, July, August, September. Uh, cause what happens is that’s when all of our larger clients really start, uh, you know, all of their

[00:12:00] new product offerings.They’re, they’re, they’re getting everything right that isn’t right re optimizing things. And they’re, they’re a quarter ahead of when the traffic’s gonna come. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s funny, I mean, now, like at this point, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re monitoring stuff you can’t create, you know, it’s, it’s too late unless you’re trying to slip a product in between now and, and, uh, and Christmas, just to pick up some of the things, but, you know, promotional standpoint, it’s already over.

[00:12:56] Like, uh, so here’s one. So for example, you know, you can run if you’re invited into like prime exclusives, discounts, right? You know, it’s, uh, in black Friday, it’s, it’s a, it’s a bigger required discount than the rest of the year. So, you know, the rest of the year you can do a smaller discount, but black Friday weekend, we, Turkey five, right?

[00:13:17] That’s what we call it. You know, you gotta do a 20% off your lowest selling price for the last 30 days. So, uh, you know, if. If you are in a run up to black Friday and you’ve run any other type of promo, then you’re going to have to come off 20% off that price in order to run a primary solicitors discount.

[00:13:36] And that’s the, that’s the discount that you will show that little badge on your listing black Friday deal. Yup. Right. Which, you know, is quite nice and makes you stand out a lot. I agree. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a product personally that, you know, sells, you know, four to five units a day on average.

[00:13:57] And yesterday on Thanksgiving, I think I sold  15 or something like that. So, um, just, just for that product and the day that people aren’t even supposed to start shopping yet. Awesome. Yeah. So of course, leveraging Amazon’s own tools is always, you know, there’s so much to it though, and to keep up with everything, but that’s definitely a mistake for sure.

[00:14:19] And then, um, I would say also just the inventory planning, cause you really, as you know, you got to really plan out through like March, right? Yep. Um, cause right after the holidays, you know, and then January tends to be a really pre-sold month for e-commerce. Cause, uh, you know, all like kiddos and, you know, we’re, we’re lazy.

[00:14:43] And so everyone gets gift cards. Right. And then they go spend them. I felt last January. Yeah. But as you know, I mean, living in China for so long, you know, come February, March, you know, the country is asleep.

[00:15:00] Exactly. Chinese new year, it’s just shut down. Yeah. So that’s the biggest, the biggest stress you have is US you know, especially if you sell out now. People, you know, sellers, you know, we’re already saying like, you can’t get your order in before Chinese New Year.

[00:15:14] Now if you don’t play, if you haven’t, some factories, you know, are, I think Chinese new year. This year. It’s never the same because it’s not on the solar calendars on the lunar calendar. So this year it’ll be end of January. I believe. And so you got to get your own. Yeah, that’s [00:15:30] super early. Yeah. See, you got everything ready.

[00:15:35] Um, so yeah, you gotta be placed in your orders before your Q4 is even over for later. So if you run out of stock now, you’re, you didn’t reorder it, you know, it’s just killer. And then, yeah, like you mentioned the gift card. I couldn’t, last year I had, you know, we still do this, this Sisitano brand, and I’m in the investment company and.

[00:15:56] Last year is Christmas we made it, kept raising, raising the price to try to keep it in stock and drop PPC, and it was still selling and we made it through Christmas and Q4. But then the gift card just exploded it. I just had, I felt this huge, I would only assume it was gift cards in January and it ran me out.

[00:16:16] Run us out of stock and then we had to Airship it, Airship some of it, which is these heavy metal coffee pots. Almost like, yeah, it’s always a struggle. Yeah. It’s, I think that there are definitely

[00:16:30] categories and products that are going to see a January lift. Just naturally, regardless of whether or not it’s gift card.

[00:16:36] Like, you know, if you’re in health and fitness, right? You come, you know, people come off of, you know, health and fitness, diet, uh, you know, anything about losing weight or getting in shape. You know, people come off the holidays, they’ve just eaten and been dormant and lazy for a month nonstop. They set new year’s resolutions to lose the, you know, the, the poundage that they’ve added on over the holidays, and they’re going out and buying their gear.

[00:17:01] You know, back back in my twenties, I used to work in a, um, a large health club in Atlanta. And, uh, you know. Q4. It was like, it was a ghost town. Q1 it was like ants on a picnic blanket. Right. The number of people that were there. We do more workouts per day in January, then like, like 10 times what it would be from January to June.

[00:17:25] So it was crazy. And then like, you know, I think, you know, people have replacements of stuff, you know, they use a lot of stuff that don’t use all the rest of the year during the holidays. Things break. They need to replace it, all that kind of fun stuff. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so if you know, health and fitness, I mean, or people just buy stuff they actually wanted, you know, that’s kind of the annoying thing, right?

[00:17:48] Whether it’s a gift card or not, you just, you’re hoping your friends know what you want and then you didn’t get what you want, so you just buy it yourself or there’s close out sales, you know, people are

[00:18:00] waiting. Some people wait until after Christmas because then the prices. I suppose they are dropped or they’re, you know, clearance, um, holiday clearance stuff where, where you might ride that wave even, and if you’re not having anything to do with it.

[00:18:12] So, so, yeah, I mean, it’s, um, it’s, uh, it’s tricky. I mean, but then how it, so how can we, how do we do inventory planning, I think is something. I’d love to hear some insights. I mean, even me, I’m

[00:18:30] not, that’s always, I think that’s the hardest thing for me personally. It is. It is tough. I mean, I think that, you know, first and foremost, you know, I think you need to reach out to your manufacturers and find out what their actual, uh, tried to use to.

[00:18:45] Your schedule is, uh, because, you know, I that least my experiences, everyone’s a little bit different. Yeah. You know, some factories are closed for 10 days, some are closed for two, two weeks, summer, three weeks, you know, some, almost a month. Right. Um, and so I think that’s, you know, kind of understand what your resources are over there on the ground.

[00:19:07] Um, and this is assuming you’re manufacturing in China, right? Um, uh, so that’s number one. And then, you know, look, if you haven’t had, if you haven’t had your products go through a holiday season yet, like, you know, you’re using your best guesstimates. Right? Um, and so, you know, I think for, for seasons or season

[00:19:30] products, uh, that have, you know, a nice, you know, history of reviews and sales history.

[00:19:35] You know, you could easily see, you know, double in November and, and triple or quadruple in December, but some products are way higher than that. Right. Um, so, but if you just launch something over the summer, you know, you just gotta use your best judgment. But, you know, I think if, you know, if your using a three PL in the U S to store your goods, uh, you know, instead of just putting everything in Amazon, you have.

[00:20:03] You know, some opportunities to be more thoughtful in your planning. So, you know, it’s always better to, to, to plan on a little bit more of an aggressive side, uh, in terms of inventory then than run out and, you know, lose, you know, a week of the, you know, the best trading days of the year. So, uh, you know, I think it’s just that, I mean, it’s being thoughtful, Mike.

[00:20:25] Uh, and, uh, and, uh, you know, trying not to underestimate, don’t go too crazy, you know, but again, just, you know, don’t stress yourself out too, too much on it. There’s always a next season. There’s always a, next year, there’s more holidays and Q1 there’s more holidays and Q2. Um, but just really just, you know, do your best, use your historical, you know, data for reference.

[00:20:49] Use the rest of the industry. In terms of data for reference and, and do your best just to stay in stock. True. I mean, the other, the other really hard part is, you know, Q4 is storage fees and Amazon crank it up too. So you also got to kind of be a little bit careful. Yeah, for sure. They do. Um, I mean, if you move in stock, you’re not going to feel it very much.

[00:21:14] Uh, I certainly a lot less. But again, I think that’s one of the big advantages of using the three PL to, to, to bring your stuff over to first and, uh, and then bring in an Amazon as you need it. So you always have, you know, if your 3 PL say in California, I mean, you know, you could be, you know, two to three days away from being, uh, getting into Amazon.

[00:21:38] Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, definitely. There’s lots of different logistics companies that can help you with like a California West coast, our warehouse and other solutions too, to try to balance the fees and having some stock ready. The other, the other strategy that I’ve always liked to hear is if you want to do, make some bundles or are you wanting me to change your product a little bit, you know, add, um, add a little bit extra bonus.

[00:22:03] You could ask your fulfillment company to throw some extra stuff in there to change it up to make it more attractive listing in case some competitors kind of come in or. Sure. Different things. I mean, I think, you know, in terms of tactical for the holidays, I think, you know, real well, this all sounds a little boring, but.

[00:22:26] You know, the really going back to the, you know, the core foundation and basics of really what makes a good e-commerce listing or Amazon listing, and to make sure you’ve nailed that over the summer. Prior to that, you know, prior to Q4 starting and really just getting your, your sales going. I get the history going, getting the reviews going and have all that stuff really in place before you hit Q4, I think is, is by far the, uh, the best strategy for taking advantage of it.

[00:22:55] Um, you don’t always need to discount, uh, through Q4, especially on this weekend. Black Friday. You don’t always need a discount to sell. Well, um, you know, I know plenty of our clients and, and colleagues, they don’t discount a a dime. During this year, you know, they use this year to get full. I, you know, this part of the year, they get full margins.

[00:23:14] You know, they discount, they do sales, they do all kinds of things to get, you know, their ranking up. Uh, you know, uh, going into this time of year, and then they let you know, let the listings do what they do and take it. They take full advantage of the, uh, the volume of Q4 at full rate. Yep. Of course. I feel the same way with us.

[00:23:34] Uh, you know, alpha rock, we’ve been increasing price on a lot of different, different product. Just this is the time to make the money. Right? I think the rest of the year is when you’re trying to get your reviews, trying to get your attraction, your velocity. This is. Q4 I think is when you’re trying to cash in and, and, uh, pay for the rest of the year.

[00:23:53] Yeah. What I’m really excited about, there’s a program that not a lot of people know about yet. It’s an invite only beta. Uh, right now on a, it’s called virtual bundles. So, uh, I heard about it, about maybe. Three, four weeks ago, um, I’ve already contacted Amazon. It’s tough to get in. It’s very, very restrictive at the moment.

[00:24:15] Uh, but this is something that, you know, I think sellers have been waiting on for a long time, and the ability to create a virtual bundle so you don’t have to tie up inventory on multiple skews, but it’s, it’s really exciting. So the way it’s gonna work, uh, according to the beta page that I read, is that.

[00:24:34] You’ll have a new listing, you’ll have a new ACE and, but Amazon will actually pick, uh, from the individual skews, uh, you know, so, so that’s really, really exciting, uh, to be able to do that. And you can do it in a lot of different ways. And then, uh, that going, hopefully they expand that going into next year.

[00:24:55] Then that’s really, really exciting for the holidays to create some special holiday themed bundles. Um, you can do some really cool stuff with it. Yeah. I liked that because he has kind of, one was was just mentioning about having stock out outside of Amazon to make some special bundles. Um. Okay. So you work with a lot of listings.

[00:25:13] Do you see people, or do you advise people to like authorize the listing for Q4 for like keywords or for images for the specific, for the specific holiday or, you know, yeah. So I think, you know, we’re, we’re big on testing, right? And here’s the interesting thing about. Q4 optimization, right? It’s, you know, the, the, the rule of optimization is that you really only need to, you only want to change one thing at a time to see if it actually gives your, your listing any lift, right?

[00:25:49] So, you know, if you’re trying to task like. You know, conversion and click through rate by changing your main image, right? Like you don’t want to be changing anything else on the listing until you have your data on that one change. Right? I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s optimization one-on-one. So the, the, the tough thing about going in the Q4 goes, is the, the amount of customers is just so much higher that, you know, it is a dance to be able to tell if you know, if, if your change was, what did it.

[00:26:22] Or the time of year was with did it. Right. Um, but I think, uh, you know, we can lean on retailers in this time of year to kind of look at historically what’s really worked. Um, so yeah, we have, uh, we have clients that we’ve re optimized, uh, their backend. We’ve op re optimize some bullets, uh, entitle, uh, we’ve re optimized images to put holiday, uh.

[00:26:48] Themed images, uh, inside of their stack. Um, you know, we’ve done, you know, holiday banners on a plus and their storefront, and just again, getting people in the mood, [00:27:00] um, because this isn’t something that most sellers do. And so it also gives you an opportunity to really stand out a bit. Um, and so just kinda thinking of the bigger picture, you know, like if you look at like.

[00:27:13] Wait, like target in America does, uh, or Google around the holidays. They all, you know, theme out their logos right there, this holiday.  yeah. So just little things like that that again, going back to like, you know, Macy’s, the reason why they created, you know, the Thanksgiving day parade is just getting people in the holiday spirit, right.

[00:27:37] Um, cause there’s all these things that you can do to get people to your listing, but once they’re there. Uh, we don’t, no one really talks about engagement on your listing, but the reality is you need to keep the consumer there long enough to decide whether or not they want to buy. And so, uh, all of these things are, are really tactics to do that.

[00:27:58] Okay. Okay. Interesting. About, yeah. Like, I’m more of, honestly, I’m more of a Google, Google marketer than a, than an Amazon marketer. I like, you know, but I think any kind of search engine algorithm really wants the users to, of course, Amazon can measure conversions, but even stickiness or, you know, scrolling on a page or scrolling through the pictures, you know, like you said, they, they, they know everything is there, their sites.

[00:28:26] So you want to, uh, yeah, you want to just show that you’re engaging with the, um. With them. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s resonating. Um, well, this is one of the big reasons why a plus, you know, slash EBC enhanced brand content. This is one of the big reasons why it increases the conversion rates so much, is it’s the stickiness factor.

[00:28:48] So if you look at, you know, if you’re like, say you’re on mobile, which is where most, uh, of search originated. Now. Um, it might not, they might not purchase as much from mobile, but certainly originating there that a plus comes in and you’re looking at all those additional images and content like where.

[00:29:08] Consumers used to be, the listing used to be over, right? Like they’re down towards the bottom. You know, they’re, they’re done product description, uh, and some product details now have, you know, half a dozen more images and content that is keeping them on the listing way, way longer. Right. So.

[00:29:30] Really good enhanced brand content, uh, has the ability to, to impact that engagement massively, which is why, you know, we’ve seen double digit increases with good EBC applied to a listing.

[00:29:42] Okay. I agree on that. And then, so I guess my other question, which if the positive maybe of you might increase your sales, if you have this Christmas feel on your listings. But then of course, you’ve got to remove that, just like you take down your Christmas tree, unless you’re like in the deep South, and he keeps the Christmas lights on year round.

[00:30:04] But, uh, you do want to take the Christmas lights down on your virtual stuff as well as in here, uh, as well as in your, uh, you went there, didn’t you? Sorry. Not that I just, I’ve seen it in my own eyes, so it’s, it’s real. That’s real. Right? Uh, you know, of course in the Amazon and eCommerce world, and you don’t want to have the Christmas lights up in January, so, you know, just create more work.

[00:30:32] Of course, you do, you create more work. But I mean, realistically, like. Everyone’s fighting for transactions on a, uh, on the platform. And, uh, you know, everything is, you know, everything builds on itself. Right? So, you know, is it a lot of extra work to create, you know, to create a simple banner that you can add your a plus, eh, you know, not really.

[00:30:56] I mean, it, you know, it might cost ya, you know, a couple of hundred bucks to outsource that. Um, and then have it done nicely. Uh, and then, you know, like the way we do it is we just add another, uh, banner to a plus, so that, you know, come early January when it’s over, we just click delete. Right? So it’s, it’s really not a whole, we’re not changing a whole lot of things where it may be adding some things to a listing.

[00:31:23] Um. And, uh, you know, we’ll tweak around some of the backend, uh, keywords, which, you know, if you have a, if you have a huge, huge, uh, catalog, obviously that’s a lot of work, but, you know, still probably worth it. Okay. Yeah. Then, yeah, I mean, we can’t be so lazy. It’s not, it’s, you know, it’s already pretty sweet.

[00:31:45] You can just watch the sales come in and Q4 and you got to do some cleanup, you know, take down a Christmas tree and take down the images. It’s not, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. And, um, yeah, I mean, look, you know, as well as I do, man, like, yeah, the, there’s, there’s a big, there’s a big difference.

[00:32:03] Like, uh. If you like it, we’ll talk about like social media, like, you know, people, people post their highlight reel on Facebook, right? And Instagram, like we see the, all the magic good moments of people’s lives. Right? Same thing’s true. Like on the conversations around e-commerce, right? You know. Laptop lifestyle, you know, sitting on the beach and uh, and bootcamp, you know, and, uh, uh, and not really working.

[00:32:31] And while some of that is true, right? The eCommerce is by no means a set it and forget it business, right? And Amazon is certainly not that, uh, if you set it and forget it, your business is going to die for the most part, unless you get really, really, really lucky and fortunate. But most. Most businesses that get no attention, uh, and people spend no time on overtime are just going to fade the black.

[00:32:59] Agreed. So I think we’re getting towards towards the end of our talk. I mean, is there any, any last points about, you know, transitioning, I think we covered it pretty well. You know, we went through the course to add a stock new, be stress, take advantage of the Amazon’s, uh, own levers. It’s a Turkey five was that the right thing to have?

[00:33:20] It’s cool. Inventory planning, which added of course, Chinese new year preparing already even before Christmas is over. And uh, the virtual bundles is really cool. Thanks for sharing on that one. Sure. And then, yeah, of course it’s hard to test and queue for cause people are just buying maybe everything or your competitors are running at a stock and you might just get really lucky cause everybody’s out of stock and you’re not right or the other way around.

[00:33:44] So it’s true. It’s hard to really test. Eh, but, um, you know, you should always try to test and, uh, but this has been really fun, fun talk, especially in the holiday, the holiday weekend. So thanks Keith for, for sharing.

[00:34:00] Yeah, my pleasure, man. I think we nailed a lot of stuff and, you know, look, when in doubt, send in more inventory.

[00:34:07] Uh, you know, cause that’s the other thing, Mike, is that, that, you know, Amazon’s gonna move your stock around right. Uh, and you know, it’s really big with, with one day shipping now, uh, and, uh, you know, the more stock you have, the more likely they’re gonna move it around to disperse to, to, to where the demand is.

[00:34:25] And, and that just puts you in a much better position, uh, from a ranking standpoint if you’ve got stock close to the customer. Agreed. Agreed. So, where can people find more about you? Keith is page.one is, is the agency. And, uh. Yes, it is. It is page.one and that’s the no.com on the end of there, it’s dot. O-N-

[00:34:49] E. uh, but I think if you just Google page one, we come up pretty quickly. Uh, and um, yeah, that, that’s where you can find out. We have a lot, we have [00:35:00] case studies on the site. We have full description of services. Some of the prices that are we have for services are on the site. Uh, you know, things like ad management or fold brand management, that’s a conversation obviously as it’s a longer term relationship.

[00:35:14] But, um, yeah, it’s, uh, that’s, that’s the best place to go and it’s certainly, if we could help any of your listeners, we’d love to help them make some more money going into 2020. Sure, of course. It’s great, Keith. And, uh, thanks for sharing and definitely if anybody’s interested, Keith’s great guy and, and uh, and reach out.

[00:35:30] So thanks again. Happy. Yeah. Happy holidays to you and your family as well. Looking for a teaching job in China or other parts of Asia, the partners at expatteaching.com is a great place for you to go check out different job opportunities and connect with different specialists. If you are looking for a career change or looking to wait, get your foot in the door in China or other parts around the world, this is an agency that can help you connect with

[00:36:00] different people for getting English jobs or teaching jobs or math

[00:36:05] jobs and others. So I know we all got to start and we want to get somewhere, check out expatteaching.com. Thank you, Keith. I appreciate you sharing with us on the show and he’s an awesome guy. It’s been really cool. I remember first time we connected on Facebook, he reached out and he saw like one of my video blogs about Chinese seller conferences, and it was like one of these.

[00:36:28] Thousand multi-thousand seller events in Shenzhen, China. That was a crazy day. It was a really crazy day. It was the same day the police or immigration came to my, all my house. They were looking for the two other foreigners that were not reporting with the police that were looking, they were looking for me.

[00:36:46] I was harboring illegals and I was like seven o’clock in the morning and literally I was in, I like sleeping clothes. I do wear clothes when I sleep. Underwear. Luckily, but I answered the door and I, uh, I was, there was like a

[00:37:00] whole group of people wanted to go pro and camouflage and police uniform and undercover clothes, and they’re like ready to raid my house.

[00:37:07] Same word. The other two foreigners woke up. My wife didn’t know what she was, what was going on, and it was my two kids. They were raiding my house to find my two kids. I forgot to register with the police when I registered with the police. And that was in 2016. It’s only gotten more strict as you probably can tell.

[00:37:27] And I will be going back into this. I really, really hope, hope the show will go online cause I have an amazing team. But hopefully I will be in free out, you know, free, uh, able. Uh, I’ll, I’ll just shut up, but hopefully I’ll be back to normal getting the next week show online. We have the interviews recorded already.

[00:37:48] I can keep this intro short. I still gotta finish packing here in Chiang Mai and we’re like, why have just rented a car to another Chinese mom while we’re gone for half a year. It’s going to be crazy, but I will cut the blah, blah, blah short this time. It’s your holiday anyway, so go and do some holiday cheer stuff.

[00:38:06] All right. See you next week. Hopefully to get more info about running an international business, please visit our website www.globalfromasia.com that’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.