Podcast transcript
James Dihardjo
Hey everyone, James from MerchantSpring here for another episode of Marketplace Masters where we bring new insights from industry leaders around the world.
Vitalii, thank you very much for making time to chat from your part of the world. I thought it would be great to just kick off by getting you to introduce yourself and just talk a little bit about what you do in the Amazon space.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Great. James First of all, thank you. Thank you for your invite. Thank you for hosting me. My name is Vitalii Khyzhniak. I'm the CEO at Profit Whales. We are working as the Full-Service marketing agency for the Amazon brands. So we are helping them to grow to find the best strategies on Amazon and out of Amazon in the case of Advertising or any other things that should be done. Typically, we work with the 7,9 figures. So it's like, who is more expert, the guys who get enough expertise right now, they have a good result. And yeah, according to our main idea we could have, we will find the best way how to make them more profitable and to grow their business correctly.
James Dihardjo
Great. And I guess just to clarify, you work with sellers globally, is that correct?
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Yeah, we work with sellers globally. Our main market in the US because now we have inside like the Profit Whales, we have our own software. It's like you know, we work as the senior ship with the software and the human capital that we have inside our team because we do not like use something like external softwares. We have created our own and right now it's like more than two years in the market. We have closed that like for the general use, but we keep that for our clients our specialist inside our team. So these software right now is available on the US if we're speaking about the UK or any other things like this Singapore or any other marketplaces.
Right now, we are working on like adding all these API's here and start working and I guess that will be available during the next half of the year. We will like finalise that and we will have a chance to work correctly with the data with all analytics insights and all
other marketplaces. Yeah. So main focus is the US, most of the clients and most of the customers they are here and yeah.
James Dihardjo
Awesome, awesome. Well, look, we're looking forward to having more of your presence down here in Australia. When and if you get to that. So, looking forward to it, straight into the questions. Yeah. So you know, this week's theme is, Advertising Strategies and we've been talking to a lot of interviewees about advertising and all that kind of stuff. And just off the top of your head, what's the latest kind of strategy that you've been recommending to sellers? given the current climate with like low stock and COVID and all that kind of stuff, would you be able to talk about it.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
That is a really good question because we spent a lot of time working closely with the Amazon Advertising team with all the closed betas that we have attended during this year and this year is not so typical as like 2020. For example, in the case of the changes, in the case new updates inside the advertising, we absolutely sure that now Amazon will go ahead into the not Amazon sellers. Amazon will focus and help exactly Amazon brands. So you should keep an eye on that.
You should absolutely make everything clear in the case of your brand on and out of Amazon. So here we could cover a lot of things not only Advertising. Here we will cover your website, you’re out of the Amazon appearing as we will speak about the design, your branding and all these things because now you should be clear for your final consumer all around the places where you are. If you are just on Amazon and you just have some sales that will be not a longer run, yeah. So for you there is, it will be one of the main like misconceptions that you have now and that you should improve. Yeah, start looking forward to that.
If you're launching new products, you should understand that the Amazon is like one of the marketplaces and you should be in the e-com world exactly as the like. All other thing that you should do the Shopify, the Instagram, the Facebook, the YouTube, like all other things that that could be available for you now for free and you will have a chance to like work with your final consumer.
And according to that, for more experienced sellers I guess like they absolutely sure and we sure that now we will go into the brand analytics into the Amazon attribution and the DSP exactly because now that will be a main transfer. The next I guess year we will see a lot of new updates here in the case of the algorithms have ever since working. You will see more impact if you are working into that and if you have like missed that or you do not have a chance to like go through that or you do not include these tools into your strategy, we would be glad to help you.
Yeah, to clearly understand how to work exactly with the DSP, should it be profitable or just analytics like, how to work with that based on your business, the same with the Amazon Attribution like if you're using inside the Amazon, you should do that right now with the Amazon Attribution for making it clear how do you attract new traffic. Yeah, because the Amazon is the limited traffic conditions, you should be absolutely sure that you like support and help Amazon to achieve this final goal. Yeah, that people like all around the world, they use not exactly on the Google for searching, but the Amazon could be also in the top, something like that.
James Dihardjo
Yeah, interesting. So I guess just to kind of paraphrase you. What you're saying is actually look at the broader picture, meaning like a full Omnichannel presence. Is that kind of where you're going with that totally?
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Yeah, yeah.
James Dihardjo
Yeah, fantastic. I think that definitely makes me happy given that our dashboard is a multi-channel platform.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Right, right.
James Dihardjo
So, coming onto my next question, so coming into peak season this year, obviously with different Prime day timing. I think last year we had Prime day at this time of year and this year we don't. What's your top tip coming into the peak season from an Advertising perspective?
Vitalii Khyzhniak
You know I guess a lot of people right now asking me like what should I do for getting prepared for the Q4 for example and what is the best trick so I could do like, one step and everything will be set up. I told you like choose only what you could do. Like now it's to go and choose the right place where you will have a vacation after the Q4 and that will be like the best thing that you could do now because everything should be done. Everything should be done exactly because now I guess you do not have any spots for the Black Friday Deals or anything else ever since you guys already closed.
Based on our clients, they already have done that schedule and then everything is OK. In any case, so this strategies and creating some creatives, photos, video content for exactly for some holidays, it's also should be done already. And if we're speaking about the PPC campaigns or anything else, we spent a third quarter for getting all the positions right for the in inside the organic inside the PPC because now you couldn't like grab them easily during like one week or one month. It's not somehow like the Amazon Algorithms could work and if you're keeping right now the best sellers, keep an eye on that. You should be absolutely strong in the case of improving that, maybe you will now overspend, but yes, you should do that now for you do not lose in this position in Q4.
So I would recommend you, if you're using the PPC as the main tool for boosting your exactly like sales or keeping your organic results in the same level, what you should do just be attentive exactly into the holidays days. Like during the holidays, you could turn off your Ads for example, because you will see a lot of traffic, a lot of clicks without sales that there is like typical behaviour inside the holiday period. Before the holidays, absolutely you could increase that. You could track people, they will have a chance to add you into the cards to finalise their purchases. So everything should be OK. But keep an eye exactly into the holiday period, yeah, during like these three days when you will see the Halloween, when you will see the Black Friday. Cyber Event, all things that could happen.
Set up any limits budgets if you're worried about the results and you are not sure that PPC could work correctly and of course you could follow the Profit Whales insights and download our Q4 guide that we have. But I guess here you will find a lot of like small insights and small steps that could help you to get more ready or just check, are you set up everything like correctly and what things could be improved.
James Dihardjo
Yeah, great. I suppose you'll give me a link to that report, right? so we can share it as well.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Yeah. I will.
James Dihardjo
So yeah, look, I think there's some very interesting advice like turning off Ads, I think. I love that. I love that kind of that recommendation there. It's definitely a bit controversial, but I love it, man. Brings me to my next, well, I guess final question here. So not related to Advertising at all. Lots of people are really worried about stock. Some sellers actually think they'll be completely like out of stock very, very soon. And it's not because they've failed to plan. I think it's just simply a situate that literally the global situation. So how do you see this peak season playing out given all the variables and things that sellers can't control that are happening around the world?
Vitalii Khyzhniak
I guess here you should have a synergy right So synergy with your inventory, your planning and of course the marketing because for you that is the main idea how you could build and get more profits from all the things that you do inside the Amazon. And if you right now going out of stock and you do not will have a chance to get all your like products into the Q4 and you're just missing these periods, you could make some decisions and conclusions based on for the next period of time.
You should be ready for that you for you there is like the investing machine. You could invest into that. You could go forward maybe next period of time. So, try to work closely with the cash flow that you have. Try to maybe build the diversity maybe not only on Amazon but out of the Amazon because we have a stock problem on Amazon, but what about out of the Amazon? You could use all other ways how you could control that, how you could work with that and that also could be an option for you.
So I would recommend you just to fill and understand and maybe try to forecast the next year now, to make all right. Yeah, to get and to fill all this inside that you got already and for you that will be a great strategy for the next period of time for boosting your sales, for keeping your inventory, to understand what is the best positions that you should keep, what is the badly positions that you could, for example, forget about them, anything else. But yeah also if you're going out of stock, you could start working with the price. Just increase that like try to fill that. Try to be on the level for keeping like this period of time on small number of sales. But still you will be on stock, people will still searching you, clicking on you, you will be like on the same level. There is also the option but be careful try to move from the data that you have.
James Dihardjo
Yeah, cool. Look, very, very pragmatic and practical recommendation there for sure. Look, I'll, I'm conscious of your time, Vitalii, but again, thank you so much for coming on and I'm very sure we will probably have you back again after peak season. Perhaps to do a bit of a review and see what you think about how it played out.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Yeah. Of course, of course, we'll do.
James Dihardjo
Thank you.
Vitalii Khyzhniak
Thank you, James. Thank you for your time.
