TAS 289 : Ask Scott Session #87 - Your Business and Marketing Questions

It’s one thing to learn the hard way. It’s an even BETTER thing to learn from the hard mistakes that OTHER PEOPLE have made. You can be one of the smart people who learns from that second option by listening to this episode of The Amazing Seller. It’s one of the Friday, “Ask Scott” episodes where you are able to ask your questions, share your mistakes, and find out how to an experienced Amazon seller would handle your situation or circumstance. It’s a great way to learn from the experiences of others to shorten your learning curve and make your business more profitable, faster. What happens on Amazon when you change your product packaging? One of the listeners to The Amazing Seller podcast called in to ask Scott about the impact of changing his product packaging. He’s making improvements to the quality and appearance of his product, which is always a great thing to do for the sake of customer perception of your brand and products. But does a change in packaging change the way Amazon handles his products? Does it affect his product listings in any way? Is he going to run into trouble because his products are not exactly the same as they have been in the past? Scott Voelker has a great answer about this issue and even gives some advice about how to go about deciding on the better packaging options for your products - it's all on this episode. Use existing products and reviews to magnify sales of product variations. When you’ve got an existing product for sale on Amazon and the reviews have already been coming in, you’ve got a great asset that you need to capitalize on. But how do you do that? Scott’s got some suggestions for how you can use the reviews and the ratings on your current Amazon product SKUs to help you build brand awareness, cross-selling possibilities, and more for your related or variation products. He’s sharing those ideas on this “can’t miss” episode of the podcast, so be sure you make the time to listen. How to create a brand name or brand identity for your eCommerce products. We all know the brands that have dominated the retail industry. Nike. Apple. Harley Davidson. These companies are known for their brand identity as much as they are for the products or services they provide. How do you create a brand that is THAT powerful? Is there a simple but effective way to begin the process? Scott Voelker is a proponent of what he calls “Open Branding” and on this episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast, in response to a listener question, he walks through what it takes to build an open brand, what it means for you as a person growing a brand from nothing into prominence, and how you can get started today. What is your biggest eCommerce or Private Label struggle? Get a solution here. There’s nothing like an experienced voice of reason to come alongside you when you’re struggling to find an answer to a pain point or problem you have. In business, that can be extra helpful because every delay or misstep can cost you money. This is an “Ask Scott” episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast where Scott Voelker answers your eCommerce, business, and Amazon sales questions. You don’t have to learn all the lessons yourself by making mistakes. You can learn from someone who’s been down the road ahead of you and is happy to help you learn to navigate your journey using his mistakes and lessons learned. If you’re at all interested in eCommerce, this episode is a great introduction to what it takes to build a successful business. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this Q& A session of the podcast! [5:07] An upcoming TAS unofficial meetup in San Diego! [6:20] QUESTION ONE: Upgrading my packaging… does Amazon care? Does it change anything? [14:10] QUESTION TWO: When my product has variations and I stop selling the original SKU, will I lose the reviews I have accumul