Take-off Thursday Digest— 13 July 2017
Welcome to another week of the Amazon Seller Digest. I’m just getting back from a wonderful vacation with my family, and spending time with the team of Jungle Scout developers at our hub here in Vancouver.
Taking a little time off always leaves me feeling energized. But one thing I always do, even when on vacation, is read my daily news feeds.
Amazon Shopping Traffic Updates
As Amazon businesses continue to grow and provide opportunity, reading about Amazon’s statistics, growth and traffic is always fascinating to me.
A recent study found that two-thirds of internet users in the U.S. (that’s 155 MILLION people), have visited Amazon.com during the first quarter of 2017.
The same study took a look at traffic for other large online retailers, like Nike and Victoria’s Secret and none of them reached more than 5% of U.S. Internet users. That’s some perspective!
Even large department stores with a wider customer base didn’t exceed more than 10% of U.S. Internet users. Only one retailer, Kohl’s, managed to attract more than that. Be right back, I am off to take a look at what Kohl’s are up to 😉
You can read the full study here — MARKETWATCH
Prime Day 2017
One thing not to do on Prime Day is check out gadgets and purchases you already made recently. You could be in for a shock when you realize that new blender now has $90 dollars off because of Prime Day!
Amazon seemed a little late in promoting Prime Day to their huge network of Third Party sellers this year, but the program was still a huge success, with new deals been released every 5 minutes.
The first Prime Day was held on July 15 2015, the anniversary of the founding of the online retail giant by chief executive Jeff Bezos.
It’s a deals extravaganza right in the middle of summer. Prime members get the opportunity to get some crazy discounts without waiting for the mad rush that happens every December. Of course, it helps to promote Amazon’s cause by encouraging consumers to become Prime Members. In fact, Amazon’s actively promote that there are “more deals than Black Friday” for Prime members only!
This year’s Prime Day was extended to 13 countries, including the US, UK, Austria, Belgium, China, Canada, Italy, India, France, Japan, Spain and Mexico.
Prime Day had a great impact on our new case study product, Jungle Snugs. We sold 43 units overall, our best sales day yet (see below for more of our case study updates).
I’m looking forward to seeing the figures being published about how successful this year’s Prime Day was across the marketplaces in the next few days!
Enter The Geek Squad
Slightly amusing and intriguing news I read very recently is that Amazon is investing in a “Geek Squad”. This entails hiring their own in-house experts to help customers with setting up smart homes. They are even offering free consultations to help people decide what smart home tech they need!
Amazon also offer a home services option for customers who need to find help with everything from cleaning to installations and assembly.
At the moment this is only available in certain states but there looks to be a large roll-out ahead.
It super interesting to see the initiatives that a company who has made it’s millions in an online space have in place. It seems to me that Amazon are definitely not ready to ditch the in-person, physical experience of commerce just yet. Interesting!
Read more — RECODE
The Million Dollar Case Study Continues
If you haven’t seen it yet, I set out early this year with a huge goal in place. To sell $1 Million Dollars worth of product, donate the proceeds to charity, and document each and every step of the way for the community of Amazon sellers out there!
I can’t believe this year has gone by so quick, but I just aired Session #20 last night! I covered the topic of Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), and we have a followup session on the same topic happening next week. Make sure you keep an eye on our website for the recap.
Our initial product launch of the Jungle Snugs baby hooded towel has gone really well so far — check out the product listing here!
During my recent vacation visiting family I got to see Jungle Snugs in the flesh. Here’s me and my wife Elizabeth sporting them. They really are fantastic quality, so I’m stoked with them!
We are running a Giveaway before each Million Dollar Case Study session to win one free month of the Jungle Scout Web App, and an exclusive Jungle Scout T-Shirt.
I am starting to hear a lot of followers of the case study saying they haven’t caught up yet. My advice is, don’t panic. Each week we cover a different topic which is insightful and useful in itself. We document everything in useful recaps too, so you can always catch up later or go back and revisit a session.
If you missed any of the previous Million Dollar Case Study sessions, you can get the full recap in this playbook!
Quote Of The Week
“The best way to predict the future is to create it” —
Abraham Lincoln
If you have time to listen…
My favorite podcast right now is Startups For The Rest of Us.
I feel like the presenters, Mike Taber and Rob Walling, are talking to me in every episode. Geared towards helping entrepreneurs launch great software, the content is wide-ranging, yet always relevant, insightful, and actionable.
Book of the moment
I just sped through this book, by Russel Brunson of Click Funnels Guys. The story of ClickFunnels is one of the most successful SaaS stories I’ve heard in recent times, and the book did not disappoint.
They way they built a cult-like following in just a year’s time is pretty amazing. There’s definitely some shared insights in this book that I have taken away for thought!
That’s all for this weekly digest, see you next time!
