Aaron Conant 0:18

Happy Wednesday everybody. My name is Aaron Conant. I'm the Co-founder Managing Director of BWG Connect. We're networking and knowledge-sharing group of 1000s of brands who network and knowledge share together in the digital space, I connect with between 20 to 40 brands every week to stay on top of the Digital Trends. When the same topics come up over and over again, we host an event like this. We also do a lot of in-person events. We're doing a half-day event tomorrow. But just a quick heads up. You know, if you want to learn more, visit our website, tons of stuff coming up. And if you're looking to join an in-person event we've kicked off, you know, the smaller format dinners, we haven't got back to the larger, you know, two 300 person event that we used to do in Midtown, but the smaller format dinners in Tier One cities across the US so just reach out if you'd like to be considered for part of those, we usually like to keep it between, you know, 15 to 20 brands as a whole. With that being said a couple housekeeping items before we kick it off. We're one we're starting three to four minutes after the hour and just you know, we're gonna wrap up with three to four minutes to go in the hour as well want to make sure that everybody has plenty of time to get on to the next meeting without being late. The other side is we want this to be as educational and informational as possible. So at any point in time you have a question. You can hit star five, a handle go up on the screen here. We can bring you into the conversation we'll just unmute you and bring you in you can ask the question live or if it's easier maybe a background noise you can always email me questions Aaron aaron@bwgconnect.com and we'll get questions answered that way but that's also if it's tomorrow if it's next week, whenever if you have questions in the digital space you need connections don't ever hesitate to reach out to 1000s of brands start up the fortune 100 of every vertical in the network and more than happy to connect you with them. With that being said I want to kind of kick this off you know the topic today is there's been this huge push into Amazon you know everybody is now selling there you know in a lot of people think they're over-indexed or they want to optimize the sale you know of the platform as a whole and as we head into you know, is we're into q4 and then you know kind of putting together plans for next year tonnes of questions coming up around you know, as there's a huge focus on direct to consumer side and connecting with the customer. How are people doing that at adapting their content and everything out on Amazon. So how to connect with your Amazon customer is kind of the focus today we've got great friends, partners, supporters of the network over at Orca Pacific they've been helping a lot of brands out come highly recommended from multiple brands in the network as a whole as Amazon experts and so they're here to kind of lend us their knowledge but also answer as many questions as we can throw at them over the next 15 minutes or so. So I'm going to kick it off with Bre Ogata from Orca Pacific if you want to jump in you know brief intro on yourself and the company the awesome I know we have Leo and Olivia on as well to kind of help you know answers many questions that are out there. But do you want to jump in quick with a brief intro on yourself and Orca Pacific that'd be awesome. And then we can kind of jump to the content? Sounds good? Sure,

Bre Ogata 3:27

everyone. My name is Bre Ogata, I am the director of account management here at work that I trained, develop and mentor all the account managers here we are Orca Pacific a full-service eCommerce agency with a key focus on Amazon, based out of their own backyard here in Seattle and have dozens of former Amazonian industry and experts alike here. So really great team of people working on multiple brands, lots of clients. And what we do is help our clients across all product categories, succeed online by developing strategies and consulting on every stage of the customer journey including advertising content, and also operations. We're also part of one of the largest marketing service companies in the world called Media Monks. This really allows us to leverage world-class abilities at every end of the digital spectrum, creative data media etc. So really excited to be going into quarterbacks.

Aaron Conant 4:21

Awesome so let's go ahead and kick it off. You know just for those of you who joined just a reminder star five is if you have any questions, we'll unmute you and bring you in or email them to me Aaron aaron@bwgconnect.com so I'm gonna kind of rattle off some things that come up routinely in conversations I'm having and then you know, we'll just feel all the questions that come in as well is I want to start off with content on the detail page. Right where I think we're sitting now is we're at Digital 2.0 right? It is going beyond just the checkmarks of I have you know this the right number of images, I've got the right number of bullet points. I've got the right number of characters in a product description. I've got a plus Detail page is like the next level. I would love to hear, like, how are you guys look at that first, you know, exposure, right that the detail page as a whole.

Leo Raymundo 5:16

Yeah, so I can jump in here. This is Leo Raymundo, Associate Director of content here at Orca, and work with Bre, and I run the content team on our site. And we look at, you know, product page details for our clients a lot, obviously. So there's just a lot of areas where we can get into in terms of how we can optimize conversions, cuz obviously that's the most important factor, right? I think for us, like the most important thing that most brands or at least, you know, we work with, don't think about as much are some of those secondary images on that image carousel. And why those are so important is because if you think about, particularly the the mobile shopping experience, where, you know, 70, and probably even more by now, 70% of users start their amazon shopping experience on a mobile device, those images are the first thing they see. And so they're used to swiping right on those images to determine, you know, if they're going to make that buying decision. And so what we see is sometimes brands, you know, they they put the images up there to your earlier point, just to kind of get some content up there, and just to get some images and different angles of the product up there. But they're not really considering some of the unique ways that they can best leverage that. So some things that, you know, we recommend is adding text to those images, which is an easy thing to do, that helps, you know, provide some context for the images, calling out specific ways, benefits and features of that product in a way that, you know, a simple image might not show. And, you know, just really thinking about, like all the different usages of the product and different ways that people might interact with it in a way that comes to life on an eCommerce page, rather than if you were to actually go into the store and hold it in your hand. Right? That's, that's the part of the experience that we want to really speak to knowing that people do not have that product in their hand.

Aaron Conant 7:11

So you have more brands and like, creating content, specifically for mobile, because it is 70%. I mean, it makes sense, right? I mean, Amazon's not really that browsing platform, it is, wait, I need a product, oh, I you know, I've got a phone in my hand, I hit the Amazon app, I search on it, you know, I buy it, and it's spent. So at least the the search begins, you know, like you're saying 70 plus percent? How should people think about the first image and I know, you mentioned the second image, which is, which is great, because for the longest time, it's like, Hey, get the main image up there. You know, the extra images are nice to have. But, you know, from your standpoint, yeah. Like, are people thinking mobile first, for all the images now?

Leo Raymundo 7:50

Yeah, for sure. I think it's obviously it's even more important. Now, to your point about, you know, people just browse shopping on mobile devices, to begin with, more and more people are not starting their journey, you know, on a desktop browser, where they're googling stuff, people look up their phone, they need something quick, you know, they're out, you know, at a party or picnic or something. And they're like, oh, shoot, I need some, you know, this thing. And so they go through the Amazon app, or they go to their browser, for the show through shopping experience. When it comes to images, specifically, main image, there's a few rules that Amazon allows and doesn't allow when it comes to those. So the first image the main image, they don't allow, typically any text or any sort of like, you know, badges or anything like that, on the first image, they just wanted the image itself against the clean white background, we recommend that at least, you know, 80% of that Canvas space is just the product itself. There's certain ways that you can add to that, you know, adding like a drop shadow, or just ways that you can kind of like make it look a little bit more 3d. But it's also important for search results, right? So as you think about how somebody starts that experience, they they search a keyword, and they go down, like the search results, you just really want to think about what's the best way you can kind of like, show your product, somebody that that resonates. And so maybe not taking like a like a straight on shot, but maybe one that's a little bit to the side, helps them get a better understanding of what that product is. And then the secondary images. So those are the images that somebody clicks on a carousel, or they swipe right. Those are where everyone does allow a little bit more creativity and has, you know, lunch rules around what you can and can't put there. Obviously, they still have some, you know, regulations like you can't make claims that are substantiated, but you can add those things like text icons, and really dry out those specific features and benefits with the caveat that, you know, again, this is a common theme, but you want to make sure that it's legible on mobile. So it's not so small that you know people can't make out what you're trying to say. But yeah, I think, just in general, really catering to that mobile experience is something that the more successful brands are doing in a more strategic way.

Aaron Conant 10:09

So a question comes in around, like written content. So on the mobile experience, right, the bullet points are further down, like So now, what you have is you have this balance of limited space versus, you know, putting enough relevant search terms in to index higher, you know, from an SEO standpoint, what, how do you how do you say, to balance that? Are people using the bullet points at all then in the mobile buying experience, really? Or is it primarily just the images that are making decisions important to those and then still feel free to stop those, you know, bullet points and product descriptions with keywords as a whole?

Leo Raymundo 10:45

Yeah, that's

a great question. Because a lot of brands just kind of assume that, you know, either a bullet points are, you know, super important to the product detail page, or be that they'll assume that users may read all of those bullet points, when the reality is, especially on mobile devices, or I should say, specifically on mobile devices, the bullet points actually, are not only sort of below the full, so they're not the first thing you see, the first thing you see is the images. But it's also, it's also an expandable window, so that you actually only see the first one or two bullet points on the product detail page on the mobile device, you actually have to click in and view more see the rest of the bullets. So when I advise clients on what they should be thinking about, you know, bullet points, of course, are important to just add some additional context. But, you know, as we all know, people are very visual learners, right. So that's why we do emphasise the importance of images. And then on top of that, I would say that the eight plus content is the next area you'd want to think about. Because the eight plus content on mobile devices, is the next thing you see after the images. And so those are the areas you know, where you can really start to put that those content together and really start to tell a visual story. And just for context, a plus modules are, you know, basically more expandable images that you can use to help further tell your, your story on Amazon. So really think about images, and then a plus content in a visual way that tells a cohesive story about your product that definitely isn't recommended, you know, hierarchy of how you want to think about those. And then, you know, obviously, bullet points you don't want to ignore, but I would say that those are things you would consider less, particularly on mobile devices.

Aaron Conant 12:33

Another question that comes in, how much should we focus on a brand store? To me, those are highly popular, I think, the fact that you can curate what you know, is a different experience than everything showing up, you can have your brands there, but how much time effort should be spent on those? If I kind of pull out the question a little bit.

Leo Raymundo 12:51

Yeah, for sure. And I can adjust. I don't know, Bre or anyone else has any other thoughts on that. But definitely, not only is it more of a focus, you know, that clients have asked, but Amazon as well, we've just seen a lot more innovation and features built into the brand store. You know, one thing that they're doing lately is adding a follow button. And so by clicking that follow button, when you go to a brand's brand store, you can actually kind of cater your feed to get important updates or posts from that brand and more of like a social media type environment, which is something that Amazon's kind of gravitating to. So the idea is that when you log in to Amazon, and you go to the homepage, some of the brands that you follow, maybe, you know, right there in front of you in terms of like, you know, social posts or other things they want to promote. So yeah, that's your brand store is obviously like, important, I think the thing that we think about from a content perspective, is we just think of ways that we can sell off that customer journey. The reason most people click into that brand stores, either through advertising, or on the product detail page where they want to find more about the brand before they make that buying decision. So we think about that in terms of like, you know, why do they want to know more about the brand? Well, they probably want to know, you know, where the brand is located, or you know, how they make their products, or, you know, just more of a story that, you know, is more important to users nowadays, just in terms of like finding out the background of the company, and, you know, maybe where the products are made, or you know, what goes into their process and what's their mission statement. And so those are all things that we want to fill in in the brand store. But we also want to, of course, do it in, you know, way that adds value, but it's not to, you know, advertising or marketing heavy, right? We want to just fill out that journey for them and really speak to what they're looking for.

Aaron Conant 14:45

Yeah, awesome. Bre, Olivia. I don't know if you guys

Bre Ogata 14:46

had thoughts there as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, to build off of that. I think Amazon's big headline right now is build brand trust and help establish stronger relationships between you and your customers, right. So we're seeing a lot new initiatives pop up to as it relates the brand store. So that follow button. From there, you can create Amazon posts with your screen looks kind of like an Instagram post that you would be scrolling on that social media platform. But further what they introduce it's in beta form right now. It's called customer engagement and all of the people that follow you on your brand store, you can engage with them through email campaigns that lives native within itself. That's all for now. But we do anticipate that going to vendor in the future. But it's a way to track your marketing campaigns, look at your conversions, your CTR, and attributions that were made via those email campaigns, and also a great way to just let your customers know you have a new product, sell additional staff and your new product launch. It's great to use that new tool.

Aaron Conant 15:49

So a quick question, how should brands view paid media? drive into brand store or driving to, you know, a detail page? Like how do you see brands? If I kind of just spin that question a little bit? How do you see people dividing up spent for whether they drive the ship? Yeah. Yeah, that's

Bre Ogata 16:09

a great question. I think more and more, you know, they're sponsored product ads, and they're sponsored brand ads. So really sponsored products that are driving your sales, for the most part, and your sponsored brands gonna drive your brand awareness, I would say implementing both of them are equally important, especially, you know, trying to get new brand customers really leaning on sponsored brands is going to be huge, I think, heading into 2022 as Amazon ramped up, you know, engaging the customer natively on Amazon itself. You know, we have the Follow button and all these new initiatives coming up. So that's going to be a key piece to think moving into the next year to focus on for advertising.

Aaron Conant 16:48

So Oh, yeah, jump in, please. Sorry,

Olivia Caparelli 16:52

I was just gonna say also just another add a little thing about the brand store. It's also really helpful just for product visibility, right. So if a customer is getting driven to your brand store by an ad, they have more likelihood of seeing a new product that might not have the relevancy or the traffic associated with in the category yet. So I always like to like the brand store specifically for new items to have a larger feature, just so that you know, there's more visibility for that product

Aaron Conant 17:16

kick off on awesome love it. You know, just to remind others Yeah, if you've joined, if you want to jump in, you can hit star five, we can unmute you and bring you in, you can ask a question or you can keep emailing them to me, Aaron aaron@bwgconnect.com. So it's something I want to dive into a little bit just because on the content side, you know, still a lot of people dealing with, you know, random content being, you know, popping up. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, Brand Registry is a whole, right, and, you know, what can I do? What can I do? How do you see brands leveraging it? Would love to hear your thoughts there? And maybe you know, Bre, I kick that over to you first. But would love to hear what you see happening in that space? Is it worth the time and the effort to get it in place? Is it really helpful in the back end? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Bre Ogata 18:04

Yeah, I don't think it's an option anymore. It's not a, you know, should we do it, it's you should do it at this point on Amazon, Amazon, that, you know, again, going back to my big headline, building that brand trust, what Brand Registry does is it allows you to be the authority over your content, and especially now moving into their initiatives that relate back to Brand Registry, you can no longer have a brand store. If you're not registered, you cannot do anything other than sponsored product ad, you can't implement your A plus content. So it's no longer optional at this point. And it leads to a lot of issues. Just your day to day catalog management is don't have it on your seller vendor central account.

Aaron Conant 18:46

Yeah, we got a handout. Let me jump out here. They thanks for hitting star five. If you have a question. Feel free to unmute it brief intro on yourself and accompany the awesome and then ask away.

Jose 18:56

Great, okay, my name is Jose. We sell artisan handmade decor, jewelry, and apparel. And we have about 40,000 SKUs on Amazon. And we did get the Brand Registry, you know, several years ago. It's done great things for us. But um, one of the issues that we had actually, like we were exempted from submitting up fees due to our category and with the Brand Registry. And so we were having like issues listing with UPC because we have like a UPC stacked incident. And, and so we have been submitting a lot of acent a lot of new product without UPC, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that, like, what's the role of the UPC? Is it going to hurt us in other ways, not including a UPC and are you on Seller Central? Yes, we're on. We're on Seller Central. Yes. Okay.

Bre Ogata 19:49

Yeah. So the only you know, the only thing would be you would have to label the item yourself. And you'd have to get an exception I think you might think you had one. So the only issue there is is later billing it as an SI que instead of a UPC on your product. Yeah.

Jose 20:06

Okay, so what does that label enable us to do? Does that improve like the durability of the product?

Bre Ogata 20:13

No, no. So just when you're asked to enter Detail page, they don't show that UPC at all. The only thing that that UPC is tied to is and if you have that UPC off channel, let's say on different channel, Amazon's going to price match, they'll they'll scrape that UPC if it's in your system tag. So it does have some, you know, effect on your pricing algorithm within your catalog. Let's say you're shipping FBA, you don't need a UPC to ship your product in to Amazon. Amazon actually provides those labels to you. And you can just place them on the units themselves. So you don't need a UPC to sell and ship anything on vendor Central.

Jose 20:51

Okay, so there's no real benefit to submitting the UPC. In summary, if we don't have to.

Bre Ogata 20:57

Correct I would have to do a deeper dive into your logistics and what you're doing off the platform. But happy to do that off this call to get a little bit more in the weeds.

Jose 21:07

Yep. Thank you very much.

Aaron Conant 21:09

Awesome. Thanks, Jose, for jumping in. Was jump out to Madeline if you want to jump in. brief intro company. Yeah, ask away.

Madeline 21:20

Yes. My name. My name is Madeline. We have the National Geographic brand registered, registered brand on on Amazon. We sell our STEM educational toys, and I am a strategic conversion specialist for that company. I wanted to jump in there and hope this is okay. But we use manufacturer barcodes or UPC on all of our products. And what it allows us to do with Brand Registry is it allows us to co mingle our products, you don't have to ship them separately, you can put pallets together of multiple products. And there's no labeling needed. It's just the challenges sometimes that the the UPC might not connect to the brand the first time. But once it's connected, it's in their system and it's solid. So those are as well as off site. Those are the ease I should say ease of FBA shipping is to just have it already on your box already there. It also makes a big difference. If you're trying to prove a case, you can take a snapshot of the bottom of the box or wherever you have your UPC code, and you could prove that you are the manufacturer and brand owner of that product. It helps with with violations. Brand violations for us a lot. So hopefully that wasn't overstepping. But I

Aaron Conant 23:01

love it. That's what makes these calls so much fun is you know, even just jump in and help network in our chair. That's what the groups in the calls are all about. So yeah, super happy you're able to jump in. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know get any additional thoughts there. Or if there's other things in the Brand Registry side that we should jump into.

Bre Ogata 23:23

Yeah, that's it for me I that's why I mentioned I just don't have to take a deeper look into what their logistics are like on the back end to see the implement the implications of not having a UPC, but that was good. Thank you.

Aaron Conant 23:34

Yeah. So I got a cool question that comes in. How should we think about the traditional consumer decision tree? And I'll as an intersect to how we should think about product promotion on Amazon? Should the digital hierarchy follow the traditional consumer decision tree? So I'll phrase that a little bit like how are you working? You guys work with brands in almost every category right? And you know, that's everything from from food to fashion, you know, CPG like how are you looking at that traditional consumer decision tree on Amazon, right? I mean, it's different I mean, if you are randomly shopping they're just showing up very punctual looking for something we'd love to hear your thoughts there. And then I want to jump into a little bit on kind of that that thought I think something that plays into there somebody has a question about reviews and content so and then others just a quick reminder, we're halfway through here just having an awesome you know, conversation around you know, connecting with your amazon customer with the team at Orca Pacific. They're great friend, partner supporter, the network and a ton of brands in the network and just come highly recommended for their expertise there. So if anybody wants to follow connection after the call, more than happy to do that, but ask away, hit star five, the hand goes up here on the screen, we can abuse you and bring you in or just keep sending them to me, Aaron, aaron@bwgconnect.com. So just, you know, back again, to the, you know, the traditional, you know, consumer decision tree, how has that changed on on Amazon? And how do you guys approach that?

Leo Raymundo 25:12

It's a good question. It's probably

Aaron Conant 25:14

I think there's textbooks written.

Leo Raymundo 25:17

Yeah, like I was gonna say, we can go down a rabbit hole of how far down we want to go. But yeah, it is interesting, I think it goes back to some of the things we talked about earlier. You know, with Amazon, specifically knowing with some of the innovations that they're focusing more and more on. So we talked about, you know, sort of this, like social media type engagement on Amazon, where you add, they have, like, added follow buttons to, you know, a brand store, and they're really trying to make it more of like, you know, more of like thought leadership or kind of like influencer awareness for how people interact with their products, because they know that that's such an important part of that journey. Having said that, you know, Amazon to your point is, you know, primarily a buying decision funnel, right. So when people come to Amazon, they're ready to buy the product at that point, for the most part, I think Amazon is trying to address the more of that upper funnel levels of the journey. And again, we're seeing that through some of the innovations that we're working on. But we still think about it more primarily in terms of like the decision and buying, making aspects of that journey. So really focusing on that lower end funnel is, you know, from a content perspective anyway, that is where we, you know, find the most traction, because we know that people are here, because they actually want to buy a product. And we just need to communicate that information as quickly and as efficiently as possible to them as to make that decision easier. But I don't know if anybody else has anything to add. But that's, that's kind of how I see it, or how we see it on the content side.

Aaron Conant 26:51

Awesome. Yeah, they did it. The next thing that pops up is around reviews. So a lot of questions around reviews, respond reviews. You know, I guess, you know, the question I would throw out there is how can brands effectively implement reviews into their content? I think that's a great place to kind of phrase the thoughts around reviews as a whole. So kind of kick that over the Orca team. Whoever wants to jump in and answer that,

Olivia Caparelli 27:22

yeah, I can, I can jump in from so Amazon's been making it more difficult to actually call out reviews or star rating within a plus content or brand stores they usually rejected if you do call it out. However, you know, they've made it so that you can put in a blurb of a review, but you have to call out this specific customer, you still can't call it a star rating. So in that sense, it's been a little bit limited. However, Amazon did update their review response capabilities within Seller Central recently. So you can now respond to reviews within Seller Central that are one two or three stars, there are some limitations meaning like you can't respond to it if you weren't the seller. So if you had a lot of resellers on your listings, it might be more difficult to respond to every bad review, and has to be within a purchase within the last 12 months. So if it falls within those two categories, then you can respond and sort of contact the customer to sort of get that feedback. If there's feedback that I'm just gonna throw something out there, like the colour didn't really match what the image shows, then you can sort of change your content around so you could take an updated image to better reflect the colour or if a customer was complaining about a certain aspect of the product that wasn't called out in the content you can edit your bullet points in order to provide the customers with that information beforehand so you start getting less of those views. So Amazon has been sort of making strides to allow sellers have more capability to interact with their customers so I would definitely utilise that if possible on your guys's side.

Aaron Conant 28:53

So I'm going to get a hand up here you know, Karen, if you want to jump in. Thanks for hitting star five.

Karen 29:01

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for calling on me. So I was just wondering if that capability that we're just talking about where you can respond to three stars or less Is that something that's for vendors as well?

Bre Ogata 29:15

Oh no, I heard nothing. Mime Yeah, yeah not not rolled out yet. That it hasn't been for vendors just yet. It is it is planned to by the end of the year, but for right now for our clients we are unit in place just for sellers. Perfect thank you for the information.

Aaron Conant 29:34

Awesome and thanks Karen for jumping in others you have questions hit hit star five, we'll make sure we get them answered. You see that I mean that gonna change. What are your if you guys look into the crystal ball?

Bre Ogata 29:47

Yeah, there's rumors. There's rumors about it. There was a similar tool that used to be in vendor central you could reply as a manufacturer. So there is talks about it going to a vendor, but we don't have a date yet. We did. issue this rollout in the last couple of months or seller, so usually vendors a bit behind.

Aaron Conant 30:05

Okay, awesome. Next question is, you know, other other things coming down, you know the pipe. So I think people want to know, you know, there's brand stores connecting off a detail page, right? And so there's this detail page, it's a plus content is a brand store, other other things that you guys see coming down the pipe different ways to engage. And, you know, the next question comes a little bit around the advertising side, you know, how are people using DSP to engage with consumers off Amazon, to kind of twofold questions that?

Bre Ogata 30:39

Yeah, that's a great question. We actually don't have anyone from the advertising team on the call today, who would be able to answer those questions in detail? I don't know, the idea that needs any thoughts on that. On the contact side? Yeah,

Leo Raymundo 30:54

I mean, there's different things, you know, whether we're talking about eight plus content or brand stores that, you know, Amazon typically will release in terms of, you know, doing different things to kind of, like, you know, innovate in the space or provide better level of user engagement. You know, one thing that we're seeing a bit more of, although not across the board is, they're offering things like AV testing, for eight plus content, you know, so those are good ways that, you know, I'm a big fan of like testing content and testing, you know, usability with people just to identify how that actually performs, rather than just kind of assuming that we know what the best content is, right. So by doing things like AB testing, which you can also AV testing, like titles of your products, you can really start to gauge and measure how effective that content is performing from a conversion standpoint. So that you can make it or like continuous iterations on that, based on what that data is telling you. And so again, it's one of those things where you can kind of get into a rabbit hole, but I think it's actually just really useful to kind of just keep thinking about different ways. So whether or not you want to use more of like a vertical alignment with your images, or whether you you know, want to write your copy more of like, left or right, you know, all those things are like really interesting things to test to see, you know, what resonates best with people? So those are kind of the things that I think about when I think about how Amazon is, can you continuously driving, you know, brands to to think about how to innovate their content?

Aaron Conant 32:31

Yeah, I agree, I think what people run into is the, the content generation issue, how much the amount of time effort money it takes to generate content, but you're, I think you're you're you're dead on, which is constantly testing and learning to a b testing, you know, maybe it's just the angle of the carton in the CPG space, right, maybe it's the angle of the dress of the black blouse in the, in the fashion space. And it's just, I mean, we've done a lot of calls around, you know, some of these new, basically what they are is CGI platforms that allow you to, you know, generate an infinite number of, you know, images, you know, in a short amount of time, where you can then test and learn over and over and over again, but you're saying, you know, Amazon has that ability to AB test that on, on images and on how many people are using that.

Leo Raymundo 33:29

So not, not on images yet, some might the latest of my knowledge, but on specifically on the eighth buck content, so you can basically create two different versions of A plus A plus content, and compare those two and see how each one of those performs against each other. And, you know, the changes are, you know, sometimes they can be incremental, but if you extrapolate that across a wide range of datasets, right, where you can, you noticed that over like a, let's say, an eight week period, you can really start to get some sense of like what works best. And so even though it might seem incremental, if again, if you think about that, you know, in terms of like this, you know, more, you know, longer timeline where you're putting your products out, and a year or two, you can really think about how that may really move the needle and change things. And continuously, like iterate on that based on the some of the data that you're seeing. So, so yeah, those are the different ways that you can really understand that data and really use it to your advantage. As far as like how many brands are using that, you know, is the brands that we work with. It's not a lot. Sometimes there's brands that for whatever reason, Amazon does or doesn't allow, we don't have much data on that as far as like, which brands they allow us to AB test but we're seeing that being offered some more and more brands that we know understand that. You know, it's something that I am going to put in a heavier emphasis on. So those brands that do have it offered. You know, I would say that probably half of our clients really leverage capability? And what is this thing about, you know, different ways that we can deploy some of those different eight plus modules? So

Aaron Conant 35:08

awesome about how should, how should people think about product photography? Right, then if it's not available on those primary images, I guess we could always, you know, there's the ability to go in and update them. But the data on the back end is kind of, you know, how much was your paid media was the competition out of stock in stock? There's a lot of different variables that will pop in there that you can't see, you know, thoughts on images we kind of started off with, which is that engaging point, improving images specifically, you know, especially with people who have limited photo, you know, resources as a whole, I would love to hear your thoughts there.

Leo Raymundo 35:45

Yeah. Yeah, it's a common issue that we see, you know, particularly for more like a small businesses where, you know, maybe they don't have like this huge in house photography team that can take, you know, really beautiful, you know, or really, you know, some more of those, like lifestyle images that you might see out of like the larger brands. So the way that we can kind of innovate that is, first of all, you know, thinking, thinking, like basic product photography, you know, everybody should be able to do that, because all it really takes is, you know, just like a little box studio that you can put together to give it just like a clean white background. But beyond that, I would say Also, think about ways that you can leverage different design assets. So if you take like a single product image against the white background, for instance, maybe adding a silhouette of a person to show the scale of that product, and how large that compares to, like an average, you know, human being is a great way to show the scale without actually taking a photo of that product in somebody's hand or something like that, which are, you know, when we look at, you know, back to Olivia’s point about reviews, those are some of the more common complaints or issues that we see from those reviews is, you know, this product was smaller than I thought, or that is bigger than I thought. So really, providing that level of scale is a great way an easy way to show some of those different aspects within your image carousel that you may not have resources for. So that's just one example. But obviously, there's different things you can do. You know, going back to like text and icons, things like that. Just getting really creative around, you know, what you can do with limited, limited images.

Aaron Conant 37:32

Awesome. The next question that comes in, what value do you price and video? So rephrase it? Is it worth it or not? I mean, everybody says, video, people love video, time, effort, money is there, you know, specific products that you say, hey, absolutely have it for my guesses, if you gotta explain something and put something together. But the flip side is you see it working for CPG? You see it working for fashion, you know, are there some like aha moments around different categories? So, you know, we'd love to hear your thoughts there.

Leo Raymundo 38:01

Yeah, absolutely. And then going back to that experience of the mobile device, so what do you think about when somebody comes across a product detail page, and they're scrolling through those images, one of those assets they will see is a video. And obviously, if they, if people click into that video, it's a great way to further engage them, because they will typically spend more time looking at that video than they would, you know, going through the rest of the content, you know, below the fold. So video is imperative, and we have some data to support you know, that video does help increase conversion rates. I would say though, the important thing to think about video is not just putting up, you know, any video that you have at your disposal up on Amazon, just because this the only one you have, I would really think about ways you can either shoot the video or edit the video, so that really the the USP, the unique selling points are really coming in that first 10 seconds. You know, we often come across a lot of videos where it's like your typical, you know, maybe to TV or YouTube commercial spot, and you don't really you know, you talk about it from a very, like marketing or commercial perspective, but you don't really get into, you know, why this product is useful, or how its differentiated until maybe about 30 seconds in and at that point, you know, most users drop off or they're, you know, going to your competitor, or they're clicking back, you know, they don't want to sit there. And you know, you don't have their attention as long as you would on say, like, you know, a YouTube video where you're kind of forced and sit there to watch it. Right. But I think about, I think thinking about the way that those benefits and those key features are really communicated really quickly. Is is something that I would say most most, you know, brands or products that I've seen on Amazon are not doing and that's a really quick, easy win, that can really help drive conversion. So

Aaron Conant 39:56

are there other things that are out there that you saw I'd kind of we'd kind of bounce around like key things that she thought might come up on the call today right that haven't come through just remind others you have questions hit star five you know handled up in the screen here we can bring you in or you can email them to me Aaron aaron@bwgconnect.com you know, are there other things, you're like, Hey, this is really impactful, right? This is stuff that we thought would come up today, but hasn't are these are new things coming down, or these, you know, just anything that's, you know, looking into the future a little bit,

Leo Raymundo 40:31

as far as, you know, engaging the customer. Yeah, I can speak speak to the content side, and I don't know if Olivia Bre have anything else to add. But you know, one thing we didn't talk much about, I mean, we touched on it a bit, but you know, the brand store, the brand store, you know, we talked about kind of like how people come there and you know, some of the different, you know, things that they're looking for in terms of like the brand and the mission statement, and you know, kind of like that brand identity and awareness. But I think it's also important to think about kind of like a navigation menu and help people find your products. So, you know, when I look at, you know, certain brands stores or web pages, and I just have that moment of confusion around how do I get to, you know, the products or categories that I'm that I want to shop for, you know, again, you really only have, you know, seconds worth talking about to really, you know, fill out what the, you know how that user, you know, experiences your brand store, so they get about your menu, your navigation, and how people consume, you know, whether it's like, you want to have a drop down with different subcategories underneath that, or whether you want to have sort of like this clearance section where people can shop for like, you know, special deals that you want to make, or you know, even seasonal things like, you know, if you have a Christmas, you know, specific line or things that are particularly, you know, useful in certain seasons, you know, you really want to think about all those levels of the user journey and not just assume that you can just create static content that will be good throughout the year. And then on top of that, brand stores also now allow you to create different versions of your brand store. So that you can kind of click them on and off, depending on that seasonality. So we've seen brands where they want to have a certain lead for fall, and then when it comes to winter, they can just click, you know, a different version, and then that will show them, like a different version for the wintertime. So those are all things we can build out on the back end. And those are things that, you know, again, we really want to think about when we're creating these, these assets, you know, specific to each brand. So

Aaron Conant 42:40

if we I kind of kicked that one over to you Olivia as well. Thoughts their Olivia. Olivia, you want to jump in? Oh,

Olivia Caparelli 42:46

yeah, I can jump in. Um, I think all

Bre Ogata 42:49

such again, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, my phone was working. No problem.

Olivia Caparelli 42:56

I think I just want to touch again on post, I think we sort of touched on it earlier. But I'd like to just emphasise how important and critical it can be to your business, a lot of my clients, after utilizing posts, they've gotten so much more traffic on their brand store. And like Leo said before allowing that follow button, this has really helped with their brand visibility and just brand knowledge across the platform's and just people trusting your brand in general, right. So you have more information that looks, you know, more professional on the Amazon platform, especially with all these resellers all over the place. So it definitely looks really great to have Amazon post. And I'm from my experience from my clients, it's just been really helpful with getting exposure for new items, and just their their overall portfolio in general.

Aaron Conant 43:41

Awesome. To get overdue,

Bre Ogata 43:43

yeah, that was my big emphasis here today is that is that post and then also, you know, effectively using your customer engagement, that new tool there to you know, you know, off platform, market to customers even further, I think that's going to be a really big initiative of that keep building these initiatives and furthering, you know, engagement on the platform.

Aaron Conant 44:08

You know, so are they're just going through, if anybody has any questions, you can you can send them over and we'll keep getting them answer. You know, are there any, like, key things that you found, you know, in regards to content that increases conversion rates? Right, that's a question that comes up routinely as people are trying to tackle this. Are there things that are commonly left out? Are there common mistakes where you guys engage with a brand and you're like, here's, you know, seven different things that you can do? Yeah, I think Sorry, go ahead.

Olivia Caparelli 44:42

I was just gonna say from, from my experience as an account manager, I think that images is something that a lot of brands, they don't realise the importance of them. So I know we talked about it before, but just having really great images for your product is something that I think is really important, and just Also the conversion, obviously. Right? So I think investing in great imagery for your products is probably one of the most important things I would say, for selling on Amazon.

Leo Raymundo 45:09

Yeah. A completely agree. And don't have too much to add there, I would say that kind of going back to the question too, about, you know, if you do have limited resources, there's all sorts of other like tools that, you know, we can use in house, sure, but also are out there that other, you know, third parties might specialize in, such as things like 360 images, or things like that, where you can kind of give users like a rotating view of the products. You know, we've seen data that does shows like things like that do help, just with context, to really make that user experience a lot more, you know, again, tangible so that they can see like different sides of your product, particularly important for you know, things like electronic products, for instance, where, you know, users might want to see the back of the product, you know, see what kind of like inputs it may have, for example, those are all just very like things that some brands may immediately Miss. Because they're just not really thinking about it from that perspective. So just thinking about all those different ways that you might view and engage with a product are key things to consider.

Aaron Conant 46:20

Awesome, love it. Well, I don't have any other hands. If anybody has any last minute questions, you can, you know, hit star five, or we can get them address. They don't have any others that have come in, you know, over over email right now. So, you know, I'm thinking, Hey, you know, Bre, I'll kick it over to you for key takeaways. If you want to, you know, think that if you want to jump in there things that people should be thinking about as we wrap up. Awesome, you know, quick reminder, hey, thanks, everybody, for joining. Thanks for all the great questions that came in. Look for a follow up email from us, I'd love to have a conversation with you. We don't sell anything here at BWG Connect, we're just a giant networking group. more than happy to connect with people on digital strategy as a whole I connect with you know, I don't know somewhere around 30 brands a week and just help them in an overarching strategy and more than happy to connect with anybody on the line today. It's where we get the topics for our calls. And so with that, and also if anybody needs help with partner selection, more than happy to do that we have a shortlist of top recommended partners and that's everything from Amazon address consumer to drop shipping to international expansion, whatever it might be, you know, in the Amazon space, the team at Orca Pacific you know, top recommended partner and that's basically whole worth of follow up conversation if you need any help in that space. But really, you have to wrap this up here in the next minute or so with some key takeaway.

Bre Ogata 47:33

Yeah, key takeaway is you know, more and more tools are available for you all selling on Amazon to engage on a deeper level with your customers on the platform. But just keeping up to date with what's available to you leveraging them, you know, posts, and customer engagement is free to use at this point. So there's no cost to it. It was just great. Awesome. leveraging that as long as you know brand I just you just making sure that that is a key focus for any brands that sell them on Amazon to have as it does affect a lot of the content that you do and all the initiatives and efforts they're

Aaron Conant 48:09

awesome. Well, thanks again. You know, Olivia and Bre, you know, thanks. You know so much for your your time today. Thanks for the in Leo for sure for being able to jump in and answer all these questions that came over. With that. We're gonna wrap it up here, get you signed back in your day. hope everybody has a fantastic Wednesday a great rest of the week. I look for more information on this side. Just reach out to us more than happy to put you in touch with the team at Orca Pacific. hope everybody. Take care, stay safe and look forward to having you at a future event. Alright, everybody, Take care and I'll be in touch. Alrighty. Thanks. Thanks, Bre.