#748 – 7-Figure Amazon Strategies From Eastern Europe

What does it take to build a seven-figure Amazon business from Eastern Europe? In this episode, Bradley Sutton travels to Sofia, Bulgaria, to speak with experienced sellers from Bulgaria and Romania who have built successful brands across Amazon Europe and the U.S. marketplace. From workwear and cosmetics to pet supplements and ranking services, these sellers share how they found opportunities, scaled their businesses, and adapted as Amazon continued to evolve.

The first story follows Iliyan Ivanov, a seller who started in advertising and eventually turned local workwear demand into a multi-million-euro Amazon brand. He explains how starting early in Amazon Europe gave his listings maturity, how Germany became his top marketplace, and how keyword research helped uncover unexpected seasonal demand around Germany’s carnival season. He also shares how tools like Cerebro and Managed Refund Services helped his team with listing strategy, keyword targeting, and recovering money from Amazon reimbursement opportunities.

Next, Bradley talks with another Bulgarian seller, Milcho Vasilkov, who used product research to enter categories he was not personally connected to, including maternity products, cosmetics, grocery, and pet supplements. His story highlights why sellers do not always need to be passionate users of their own products to succeed. Instead, he focuses on demand, customer behavior, marketplace fit, and smart inventory timing. He also shares Prime Day strategies for Europe, including building keyword position ahead of major events, using account managers for top deals, and extending promotional momentum after Prime Day.

The final guest brings a Romanian seller, Marcel Marculescu’s perspective on selling in the U.S. marketplace, and how Amazon ranking has changed over the years. After early product failures, he built a seven-figure Amazon business and now focuses on more sustainable launch and ranking strategies. He discusses using Vine, PPC, external traffic signals, keyword research, and Rufus optimization to help listings perform in today’s Amazon ecosystem. The episode closes with a powerful reminder for sellers: success does not come from a single hack or a single marketplace, but from adapting early, watching the data, and building strategies that can survive the next Amazon change.

In episode 748 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Iliyan, Milcho, and Marcel discuss:

• 00:00 – Seven-Figure Sellers From Bulgaria And Romania
• 00:50 – From Advertising Agency To Amazon Seller
• 03:20 – Launching A Bulgarian Workwear Brand
• 04:07 – Growing To €3 Million In Revenue
• 05:04 – Finding A Carnival Keyword Opportunity
• 07:43 – Expanding Across Amazon Europe
• 11:36 – Cerebro, Refunds, And Helium 10 Wins
• 14:21 – Building Mature Listings Against Copycats
• 18:41 – Product Research In Pregnancy And Baby Niches
• 23:00 – A Half-Million-Euro Product Launch
• 27:20 – Prime Day PPC And Deal Strategies
• 31:04 – Ranking, Rufus, And Modern Amazon Launches

Transcript

Bradley Sutton: 

Today, I traveled to Bulgaria to talk to seven figure sellers from there and from Romania who are all going to give us their top tips. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is a show that’s a completely BS-free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And now I’m coming at you live and direct from Sofia, Bulgaria. I’m here at the Amazing Days conference. Just finished speaking myself, and we’re going to be talking to some sellers that are from this region. 

And our first one, can you go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience? 

Iliyan: 

Hello, my name is Iliyan. I’m from Bulgaria, and I’m an Amazon seller since 2016.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Awesome. Awesome. All right. Are you from here in Sofia originally? 

Iliyan: 

I’m born in the town Gabrovo, but I’ve been living here for 18, 19 years already. 

Bradley Sutton: 

So did you go to university here in Bulgaria? 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, I was studying marketing in New Bulgarian University in Sofia. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And when you graduated, did you start working in that kind of field or what did you do? 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, I started at 21. I started in the advertising business. I opened my own advertising agency. 

And that’s how I started working with all kinds of businesses and was helping to build their brands, create their products. And with my agency, I was able to get into the work clothes business, which is actually what I’m selling in Amazon.  

Bradley Sutton: 

So what year are we talking about when you started this? 

Iliyan: 

It was 2015.  

Bradley Sutton: 

2015. And did you start directly on Amazon or it was it was just here locally in Bulgaria first or? 

Iliyan: 

It started locally and because as an agency, advertising agency we had, it was just some lookay maybe. We had a lot of clients from construction sites here in Bulgaria and we started producing all kinds of advertising materials for them. And at some point, they wanted work clothes. 

And so I started exploring the market for work clothes and I started contacting with a lot of production facilities here in Bulgaria. So I started adding this service to the agency service with, you know, the branding, printing and so on. And this is how I get into the work clothes. And by that time, Amazon was becoming something big. It was part of the European Union already. It was locally, locally was not very famous. I should say it was not famous at all. I believe that I was the first one to sell a Bulgarian brand in work clothes in Amazon. And we have some really big brands here in Bulgaria that are dealing with work wear. But it was just something new at the time. 

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. So the first year you launched on Amazon, was it 2016 then?  

Iliyan: 

Yes, 2016. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay. And was it Amazon USA or Amazon in Europe where you started? 

Iliyan: 

I started in Europe and we still didn’t go to the US. This will happen next year. I hope so. 

But we started with just one market, Germany. After that, we decided to go to the European program. But it was back in the time, it was really hard to do because there was there was no communities. There was nobody to talk to in Bulgaria. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And now fast forward to your best year of sales overall. What year was it and about how much sales did you have in that year? 

Iliyan: 

Well, it was last year. We continue to grow, which is great. We continue to have around 25-30% sales increase every year. We develop new products and we just see what the demand is. We had a new production capacity with different producers around the world. So every year is our best year. I hope the trend will continue. I believe currently we have around 3 million euros in total revenue for the year. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Which one is your biggest marketplace in Europe? Germany?  

Iliyan: 

Germany, yes. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And how much percent of your overall sales would you say Germany is? 

Iliyan: 

Maybe 25% in overall. But Germany is a market with a lot of refunds. Yeah, Germany and we sell, you know, we’re in clothing business. So this is the has the biggest percentage of return. Some of our clothing, we were able to get a very good niche about. Of course, using Helium 10, it gave us the option to target for carnival usage. One of our clothes. And we had tremendous sales during the carnival.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Carnival in where? 

Iliyan: 

In Germany. 

Bradley Sutton: 

I didn’t know that was a thing. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, I didn’t know.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Brazil, you know, and.  

Iliyan: 

I didn’t know, but as well, but I believe it’s in the end of February. Every year is a different date. 

But in the end of February, there’s like. Massive carnivals in all kind of cities in Germany and people get dressed all kind of way. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And so you found out about that from Helium 10, like Black Box or something like that? 

Iliyan: 

I believe it was Super Mario costume, something like that. And I was like, it’s not relevant, but I see that people actually buy based on these keywords. And we decided to give it a try. 

And it was one of the products. Unfortunately, it turned out that in Germany. People buy for the for the carnival and they return in three days after that. Because, yeah, yeah. And, you know, Amazon doesn’t do anything about that. Take it or leave it. So we have really, really big sales increase. Thousands of units. And but we have 45 percent return rate, which is. But. Yeah, Germany, Germany is the biggest marketplace in Europe. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Are there are there any Amazon Europe that you’re not selling? Are you selling everything, even the newer ones like Sweden and Ireland and things? 

Iliyan: 

Yes, yes. Every new marketplace that we can target in that. 

Bradley Sutton: 

What’s number two and number three, then? 

Iliyan: 

I believe that UK is number two. It’s outside the European Union already, but it’s still a very strong market. The third is France and then Italy, Spain. And currently I see that Belgium is becoming, I think maybe soon it will be bigger than Spain. And Spain was one of the of the first marketplaces that Amazon had. Also, everyone, Sweden, we have better sales there as well. 

It’s a different culture. It’s, you know, people like different stuff. But with the pan-European and it’s really easy to to ship everywhere in Europe.  

Bradley Sutton: 

When you create a listing for the first time, like a launch in a new product, do you always start in like the same marketplace like Germany or something like make the listing first in German and then translate it? Or what’s your process to get it to all of those different marketplaces? 

Iliyan: 

Yes, when we started, we created everything in for the German marketplace. This was 2015. I believe at the time, I believe that then Helium was not yet offering EU coverage. So I was using the US and that’s how I found about Helium 10. But a couple of months later, you guys started offering EU and that’s why I started using. All the tools there with the keywords and I created it, even I didn’t understand what I’m creating, but checking the competitors and checking the keywords that I need to have in my listing to convert helped me. And then there was no AI at the time. It was professional translators that I was using, hiring them. And also, of course, Google Translate, which was, you know, it was not the best. But yes, first of all, Germany, because it was the biggest marketplace. And after that, if we see that this product is starting to develop and have good sales, then we hit other marketplaces. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, interesting, interesting. Can you tell us what is your brand name? How can somebody find it on Amazon Germany? Maybe we’ll show some pictures of some of your products now. 

Iliyan: 

Our brand name is Mazalat Workwear.  

Bradley Sutton: 

How do you spell that?  

Iliyan: 

M-A-Z-A-L-A-T. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay. All right. So, guys, what was probably if those of you watching on YouTube will show some pictures of this of this brand. Is that the only brand you sell? Like, is that the main thing is what you started in 2016 and you’ve been selling all same brand all since then? 

Iliyan: 

I in the beginning, I started selling other brands, which are Bulgarian brands, but they did a- 

Bradley Sutton: 

Similar, similar.  

Iliyan: 

Yes. Yes. It was to have your own brand. It’s you need capital to start, you know, and I didn’t have that. And at the time, the only way was to purchase small quantities like one box, two boxes of products, you know, at the listing and just to see if it’s going to work. So I started with local brands. And since I managed to have good listings after that, I built my own my own brand, my own production, and currently I’m selling my brand. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, interesting, interesting. Now, when did you discover Helium 10, like around what year? 

Iliyan: 

It was 2015 when I started and I did a lot of a lot of research then. And as I said, it was really hard to understand how to it was a new thing to be seller in Amazon and really hard to develop it in the documents and everything. And I believe that Helium was recommended in most of the forums that I was reading about. And that’s how I learned about it. But unfortunately, at the time, it was only for the US, as I said. And but by the time that I have all the documents that you need to prepare, it cost me around six months to open an account, working every day on it. 

And by that time that I was ready with the documents and Amazon said, okayay, you’re ready to go. You already had your EU expansion and I started right out with your service. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, interesting. What’s your favorite Helium 10 tool of all time? 

Iliyan: 

Maybe Cerebro. Cerebro is, well, there’s a lot of tools that. 

Bradley Sutton: 

I think I think most people, that’s probably my favorite. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, it’s really it’s really hard to tell. But, for example, something that I didn’t know and Refund  

Genie, because I never thought about this and it was very hard to I was not understanding that so much products got lost and nothing happens after that. So when I was, you know, going through and learning about the different tools, I was like pretty skeptical that we’ll get something back. But we’ve been selling for quite some time already when I first tried it. And it was like a couple of thousand of euro. 

Bradley Sutton: 

We got when you first started. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah. 

Bradley Sutton: 

So out of all these years, how much total do you think now our Refund Genie is called Managed Refund Services in Helium 10. But out of all these years you’ve been selling, how much money have you gotten back, you think, by Helium 10 founded and said, hey, you can go claim this from Amazon?  

Iliyan: 

Thousands. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Maybe it more than paid for all of your Helium 10. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, one hundred percent. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Yeah. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah. One hundred percent. 

Bradley Sutton: 

I love it. 

Iliyan: 

With a big gift on top. 

Bradley Sutton: 

So it’s almost like we’re paying you to use Helium 10 instead of you paying us. 

Iliyan: 

Yeah, you can say it this way. But this tool, only this tool is enough to cover all the expenses that we ever had for Helium 10. A lot of people don’t know. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Yeah.  

Iliyan: 

That exists.  

Bradley Sutton: 

That Amazon is. 

Iliyan: 

Yes, Amazon is just sleeping on that. And if you’re too late, you cannot even. I know that there is some. They changed the rules recently. 

 
Bradley Sutton: 

Yes, yes. 

Iliyan: 

I already have a team that is doing the hard work. Yeah, we use Helium 10 all day. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Talk about that a little bit, because I know you were telling me about that off camera in the early days. It was only you by yourself and you’re the one using Helium 10. You’re the one making your listings and everything. Now you’re bigger. How many employees do you have? 

Iliyan: 

We are three persons that work only on the listings. But in total, we have our warehouse. We have eight people. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, the people who are working on the listings, are they based here in Bulgaria? Are they overseas in other countries? 

Iliyan: 

Our main guy is overseas. He will be coming here. He’s from Pakistan and we’re trying to bring him here for two years already. And I believe that this will happen this year. But the rest of the people are here. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, cool, cool. What’s your best strategy you can share with our audience? Like something unique you think you guys are doing that has helped you get to success? 

Something that not everybody else is doing? 

Iliyan: 

I believe that one of the biggest opportunities that came out was that we started early. We were able to create a listing that has maturity and currently there’s a lot of copycats out there. And they, of course, come from China. Most of them, we cannot compete them with price, but our listing is good enough to be on top. So I believe that because we started early, we are good. And once you have the brand and good sales, other products are easier to sell when people already know about you. 

Bradley Sutton: 

You mentioned being early, obviously being early to the brand. But do you also still try to be the first one with some of these new trends you see? Like maybe there’s a new kind of product and are you usually the first one who is doing it? Or do you hop on existing trends or how does that work? 

Iliyan: 

Well, most of the time, because it’s important for the budget, like, you know, that when you create your own brand product, there’s minimum quantities and so on. So it’s a big investment. And I prefer to lookay into the trends. So we follow the trends and I want to make sure that there is a trend for some category products and then to add our product there. At least at this, it’s safer for us, it’s safer for us. And we managed to get some market share out there. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okayay, what’s the future hold for your brand? What’s your goal? Are you just going to keep building more? And, you know, you said growing 25 percent every year at least. Or are you trying to build it so you can maybe sell the business later? What’s your goal? 

Iliyan: 

Our goal is to continue growing our product based. So I want to have more products that have our brand on and are created by us. And I also want to see what the U.S. will bring, because I know it’s the biggest thing. Everybody around me is talking that if you’re successful there, it’s much, much bigger than you. And Amazon also wants to help us in this direction. We have all kinds of programs from Amazon to go there. They pay us for the tax and everything related to tax issues there. They pay us for shipping even. So they believe that our products will be successful there. So this is the goal to hit U.S. and to see if we can have at least the same success that we’re going to have, that we’re having here. For selling the business, we had some hedge funds. And I don’t know if it was hedge funds, but investment funds that were only dealing with Amazon related businesses. So they buy it, they make an offer that you cannot resist, and then they build it really fast after that. And maybe it’s one or two years, they need to be even from the investment. We were approached, but during the time I was not in the mood for selling. I just wanted to build it and to see it becoming successful. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Awesome. All right. Well, I wish you all the best of success in the future. And yeah, let me know when you launch in America and maybe I’ll go buy your Super Mario outfit. And don’t worry, I won’t return it right away. 

Iliyan: 

All right.  

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. Thank you so much.  

Iliyan: 

Thanks. 

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. Now we are here at the Balkan e-commerce summit. It’s a day after the amazing days. 

And we’re still here in Sofia, Bulgaria. And I’m here at the IntelliRank booth right here. They donated their booth for a little podcast studio here. And we’re talking to another seller. You’re here locally. You’re from Sofia. 

Milcho: 

I’m from Bulgaria. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, can you introduce yourself to the audience? 

Milcho: 

Yeah. Hello. My name is Milcho Vasilkov. I’m an Amazon seller. I live in Bulgaria. This is the East Europe, is the South part of Europe. And yeah, we sell in Amazon from most of selling is happening in Europe. Like a big country in Europe is the German, France, UK. And we do this 10 years from now.  

Bradley Sutton: 

What city were you born and raised?  

Milcho: 

I born in Bulgaria, city of Pleven. This is the city is the middle of the country.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. 

Milcho: 

But I live in the seaside.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. 

Milcho: 

In the seaside is the east, east coast of our country is the beautiful city called Varna.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, what did you study in university? 

Milcho: 

Actually, I studied here in the capital Sofia. I live also in Sofia 12 years. I have the master’s degree of marketing. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Now, completely switching topic. One of the most famous athletes from Bulgaria happens to be my favorite sumo wrestler from Japan, Kotoshu, and you’ve met him before. You knew him or? 

Milcho: 

Yeah, I met him.  

Bradley Sutton: 

How did you meet him? 

Milcho: 

Actually, I have a friend which is very close to him. This is my friend live in Japan. And this guy is maybe he studied in Japan and lived there maybe 20 years. And we do some business from him. We export the goods to Japanese to Japan market. And he’s actually is my connection between. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. 

Milcho: 

Yeah. But let me tell you something funny, because I know you are a fan of Kotoshu. Here is my guest on the event is one guy. My friend is businessman, which have the house exactly next to the Kotoshu village.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Very nice.  

Milcho: 

Yeah. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Yeah. 

Milcho: 

Which is the village is the middle of the country.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. Yeah. He’s not from this area.  

Milcho: 

Yeah. He’s not from this area. He’s from small villages in the countryside. 

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. Cool. Small, small, small world for sure. Now back to Amazon. When did you launch your first private label brand? 

Milcho: 

The first private label comes somewhere 2016, 17, something like this. 

Bradley Sutton: 

What kind of product was it? 

Milcho: 

Ah, we used the software to discover a product, Helium 10, maybe you know for that. And we find the product, which is the Bells for Pregnancy Woman. And we registered the brand in Europe, in the whole of Europe. And we launched in UK this brand. And our idea, because I work with partner, our idea was to start for that, to validate the idea. Of course, if you are going well, we make a purchase for a new quantity and etc. And to enter in this category. Because I strongly believe the baby product and the product for the pregnancy woman is, I very like it. Because it’s always you have a brand new customer without experience and is not very powerful like a brand for another brands. For example, if you drink Coke, you don’t buy Pepsi, for example. But when you have a small baby, you don’t, especially if you bid for the first baby, you don’t know the brands. You don’t have experience and easy to find you. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, interesting. Now, I think this is a good example because it shows. So you don’t always have to make a product you are very passionate about or you need like, oh, no, I like to use this product. I can or I can only sell products I use. Obviously, you are not using the pregnancy. You said you just found it in Helium 10, like looking for the opportunity. And he was able to have success, even though he is not even the user of the product. And so which year was your best year of sales over all the platforms and how much sales was it? 

Milcho: 

I think for every seller which starts before 2020 is the best year because when the COVID pandemic come, everybody shut down and the sales going skyrocket. But before that, because we don’t have any good success with this brand, we launched another brand, which is a cosmetic brand. And the cosmetic product is very tricky to work. But here in Bulgaria, we have very good manufacturers and they prepare for us a good product. And we have a luck because we just inbound the new product for the product launch just before COVID. And I was scared in the beginning because how many quantity nobody knows is COVID come, right? And I was scared before the COVID, how many quantity need to be, you know, the full fees, the cost, etc, etc. But my partner said, pull everything. Don’t worry. And we did. And after a few weeks COVID come, everything shut down, all the delivery chain was broken and we have a stock. And we sell everything for maybe three months. This is the great product launch which ever I had. And this is nearby half a million euro. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Half a million euro in only three months.  

Milcho: 

Yes. For this product. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. Or for one product. 

Milcho: 

Yes. 

Bradley Sutton: 

For the whole year. What is your best number of sale or like euro amount? 

Milcho: 

Actually, we’re going between 1.5 and 2 million euros. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. Okay. Which is your biggest marketplace? Is it U.S.? Is it Germany? Where? 

Milcho: 

No. In Europe, definitely. We start because we have knowledge in Germany, Germany, France and UK. We tried to sell in U.S. We did. But it’s a totally different market for us because now our product is the cosmetics, stuff like this, and also grocery. We sell the groceries. 

Bradley Sutton: 

That’s difficult to import to U.S. 

Milcho: 

Yes. For some of them, you should FDA approve. And the product, they have expiration date because we work with the natural products to short expiration date. And we’re selling at a high price because it’s the quality and natural. But the maximum shelf life is six months. And it’s not good to sell in U.S. 

Bradley Sutton: 

So that’s another lesson is if you’re based in Europe, of course you can sell in the USA, but might be better to just stay local and you could still have a seven figure business even in EU. Which brand is your number one selling brand right now? And spell it so people can find it. 

Milcho: 

The brand is Able in Europe. This brand we should launch in U.S. This is a brand for a pet supplement.  

Bradley Sutton: 

How do you spell it? 

Milcho: 

PAW to PAW. P-A-W-V to P-A-W-V.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. 

Milcho: 

PAW to PAW. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And you sell in Germany, UK, France? Yes. 

Milcho: 

Actually, we’re using all the, because in Europe we call PAN Europe. PAN Europe means when you already have the Vietnamese number in different countries like France, Germany, Italy is paid. And our inventory we import in one point and Amazon separate in all the countries. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. And what kind of product is this? 

Milcho: 

This is the supplement for pets, cats and dogs. And it’s a very innovative product because it’s not a pill, it’s not like this, it’s the spray. And you can spray directly to the mouth, to the food, to the water and the animal don’t take any problem to take it. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. How do you and your team use Helium 10 today? Like, how does it support your Amazon journey? 

Milcho: 

Actually, we got a lot of experience with Helium 10 from the beginning because I told you we work a lot of years in Amazon. We use the Helium 10. 

Bradley Sutton: 

How does that affect what you do? So you’re looking at keyword ranking, you see something and then what does that make you do? 

Milcho: 

Our strategy for the PPC especially is we have our keywords, which we know. We observe them to see how they react. And if you were in the position with just more money on PPC, it’s simply enough. 

Bradley Sutton: 

That’s one thing you can control on Amazon. Many things you can’t control on Amazon, but where you show up in sponsored ads, you can increase the bid, increase the rank and decrease it. 

Milcho: 

Also, we use specific seasons, like before Prime Day, because everybody knows that Prime Day is a much more important event on Amazon. We’re looking to build the first position, something we know, but a much better position. And we do the observing on Helium 10, how is the week going. And before maybe one month, before the event, we start to do the advertising on these keywords to grow up. 

Bradley Sutton: 

So we have Prime Day coming up. What’s another Prime Day strategy that you think is unique? You know, something not unique is, oh, I do a Prime Day discount. That’s not unique, but something special you think your team does. 

Milcho: 

Here we have a little difference between the US and Europe, first of all. Maybe you know, for top deals, you can’t submit in your account in the US, you own, you can’t submit. Here in Europe, you can. You should use the account manager, because we have levels of the sales and we got the delegated account managers from Amazon, called SAS, in SAS program, strategic account services. He submits for us, we prepare all the data, submit it, and of course, discount is much important. But before this, we use different marketing just to exposure our products mostly. These options promote, you know, we select the audience, stuff like this, and we try to reach much more people before Prime Day. We also try some DSP strategy to put our banners to be waiting for Prime Day, stuff like this, big discount. But for us, it’s not working this way. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Do you do sale price? Do you do Prime exclusive discount? Do you do coupon? What kind of discount do you like to do? 

Milcho: 

This is top deals, means exclusive Prime deals. And one more thing, because the Prime Day is the two days, we have an opportunity to extend this campaign to 14 days. And we do something quite like a trick. We do the two, three days Prime Day. After that, few days stop. And after that starts new campaign or the same price like a like a Prime Day. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Ah, Okay.  

Milcho: 

And this is…  

Bradley Sutton: 

And then do you have in Europe brand tailored promotion? 

Milcho: 

Yes, we have it.  

Bradley Sutton: 

After Prime Day, you…  

Milcho: 

Yes, yes, yes. We do it. Yeah. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, that’s good. Thank you so much for your time. I wish you the most of success. And maybe soon let’s go to Japan together and let’s go visit Kotoshu over there. 

Milcho: 

Of course, I promise.  

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. Sounds good. 

Milcho: 

Thank you. 

Bradley Sutton: 

All right. Next up, we have another guest who didn’t have to come from far. This is his booth right here. Can you introduce yourself to our audience? 

Marcel: 

Hi. So my name is Marcel Marculescu. I’m from Romania and I’ve been on Amazon since 2016, actually late 2016. That’s when my first interaction was. And yeah, I’ve been selling ever since. So happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Bradley. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Awesome. I’ve always thought it very interesting how, for years, some of the top ranking companies, three, at least that I know, more than three, actually four, maybe, all from Romania, what is it about Romanians and ranking? Because it starts with R or what’s going on? 

Marcel: 

That’s a great question. Well, honestly, I think maybe we’re a bit pragmatic. So we’re looking for the solution to the problem. So usually ranking is the one that everyone is looking for. That’s what drove us. But true story, what we learned, what we studied throughout the year helped us develop the company and develop the services. And yeah, we thought, yeah, why not share it with the world? 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay. So before you had a ranking company, you were, I mean, you’re still selling on Amazon, but you started as an Amazon seller. But let’s go even farther back. What city were you born and raised in? 

Marcel: 

So I was born in Drobeta Tornos Severin, that’s on the south side of Romania. And then I went to faculty, to the university in Timisoara. And I’ve been in Timisoara ever since. 

Bradley Sutton: 

What did you study there?  

Marcel: 

So I studied mechanics.  

Bradley Sutton: 

So mechanics, very different than Amazon. 

Marcel: 

Different from Amazon, but I have an engineering background. 

Bradley Sutton: 

And then you started selling in 2016. How did you go from engineering, computers, all of that to e-commerce? How did you discover the opportunity? 

Marcel: 

Honestly, I’ve been on the e-commerce space without knowing it for a long time. I’ve programmed a computer game that was online, text-based, fully text-based since 2009. I built it up, I sold it, then I got it back in. So I’m still having that one. And yeah, I’ve been trying to sell things online and I’ve been successfully selling things online for a long time, but mostly digital, never physical. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Are you still selling your first product or no?  

Marcel: 

No.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Well, what was your first product in 2016? 

Marcel: 

In 2016, I started with a beach blanket, the one that you folded very nicely. And yeah, it was a huge fail. But yeah, I learned a lot in the process and that kept me going. After that product, I started with my business partner back then. And yeah, it wasn’t cheap. It was $10 per manufacturing and one more dollar to bring it to the US. So $11 was the cost per goods. We lost a lot of money. Yeah, we ordered a lot of inventory. Q4 was very expensive to have a warehouse back then. So we were losing like $1,000 each Q4 month for having inventory and not selling. So yeah, we eventually ended up destroying, even though it’s a very good product. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Yeah. What was your best year of gross sales and how much was it across all the platforms you sold on? 

Marcel: 

I’d say two years ago was the biggest year that we had and it was seven figures. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, now break that seven figures down. What’s your biggest marketplace and what’s number two, like as far as which country? We only sell on the US. 

Marcel: 

Oh, you only sell in the US? Yeah, yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I love Europe, but I dislike VAT and all the struggles with US. Everything is straightforward. Yeah. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Do you manufacture in China? 

Marcel: 

Yeah, everything comes from China. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Do you ship directly to Amazon? Do you have 3PLs in the US? 

Marcel: 

I used to have 3PLs, now I’m shipping with AWD, everything goes to Amazon. So we are using AWD and FBA for shipping directly from China. So yeah, that’s the business model. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Okay, interesting. Let’s talk about ranking, since that’s your specialty. Obviously, many things have changed in the ranking world. I mean, that was how I started before Helium 10. I was using a search find buy and two step URLs for in hundreds and hundreds of units. And it was totally fine. You know, some people all thought, oh, no, this is against Amazon Terms and Service. Before it wasn’t, now it is. And then the kind of shift was like, okay, now people do a similar thing. But with like advertising and surveys and things like that. What is working when you launch a brand now? What’s your general ranking strategy? 

Marcel: 

I can start from, let’s say, the launch strategy. That would be the best. We always use Vine. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Do you have you tried that pre-launch Vine yet or just you launch and then Vine? 

Marcel: 

When we launch, we enroll in Vine. This is what we’ve been doing so far and it’s been working. Back in the days, we were using variations. I’m a huge fan of variations and we were separating them. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Also, you could do Vine on many and then combine it. And now Amazon. See, guys, that’s why hacks are fun. But a lot of times they don’t last forever. And then Amazon changes a rule and you have to shift. But I remember that. 

Marcel: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were Romanians. We’ve tried them all. But at the end of the day, yeah, this is how we learned. So, yeah, back in the days, we tried a lot of hacks. Also review hacks very transparently. No longer touching reviews in any way. Everything we’re trying to do is forever green. So trying to to build up a business the right way. Even though on the ranking side, things are changing, are evolving very fast. We are sending with our our strategy. We’re sending signals from different platforms. So we’re mixing the signals that Amazon gets. So we’re sending traffic from Facebook, from Pinterest, from YouTube, from Google. 

Bradley Sutton: 

How? Like for certain keywords? 

Marcel: 

Keywords and two-step URLs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s everything with us. It’s everything on our side is safe as long as on our brands. I mean, as long as we mix the traffic. So everything is perfectly okay. We are getting surveys. So what we’re doing, we’re not breaking the rules too much.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Too much. 

Marcel: 

Very transparent. Too much. Too much. Too much. Because at the end of the day, you know, Amazon has restricted us from providing a product in a, let’s say, repetitive manner to the public without breaking the rule. Right. How do you provide the product to your friends to purchase it? You have to give them a keyword or something, a way for them to find it. Right. So you have to be very careful not to break the rules. If you provide a two-step URL, that’s ranking manipulation. If you provide them the keyword to search for it and find it, that search find by again, that’s not accepted. So, yeah, pretty much things are changing. But at the end of the day, yes, we want to to push the ranking mainly through PPC. That’s that’s forever green. So we’re on top of that. And yeah, why not also getting strategies aboard, including with the latest one would be Rufus through Rufus.  

Bradley Sutton: 

What are you doing for optimizing for Rufus?  

Marcel: 

So in terms of optimization, we always start from the what Rufus sees on the product display page. We go on the product display page and see how Rufus perceives it. We click pretty much all the buttons there that Rufus generates, because that’s the insight that Rufus and the way Rufus understands our product. The next thing would be to check that against the competitor or multiple competitors to see how Rufus perceives them. And now with all the AI and everything simplified, we can get a comparison and see where we lack some visibility or where we’re good at things. So this is pretty much how the simplicity of things, because it’s really, really simple. Anyone can do it. You don’t need a lot of, let’s say, tools to provide this for yourself. So at the end of the day, just see what you’re doing in terms of Rufus and what others are doing and try to optimize. Always keep in mind the keywords. So rolling back when I started, we didn’t have Helium 10. That’s when many got things rolling with Helium 10. So pretty much Cerebro was a breakthrough. I can recall exactly the year Cerebro went out, but it was amazing when we we got that aboard. This is our core feature that we’re using on a daily basis from Helium 10 Cerebro. So keywords and from keywords go to the listing and optimize for Rufus. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing your experiences. Thank you for providing your IntelliRank booth and a great event yesterday. Amazing days. It’ll be around the same time next year. Maybe Amazing days. Conference?  

Marcel: 

It’ll be on the 19th of April.  

Bradley Sutton: 

Oh, you already have the date. Even 2027, you’re already ready to go. 

Marcel: 

Well, funny story, because, yeah, Balkan E-Commerce Summit is, you know, the main event is Nikola Ilchev’s event. And he already set up his dates for for next year and will be like one day prior. So anyone that comes can maximize their experience in Sofia. So, yeah, it will be same location. Balkan E-Commerce Summit will be 20, 21 of April and amazing days will be one day prior the 19th of April. 

Bradley Sutton: 

Yeah, sounds good. Maybe I can come back for a third year in a row and maybe we’ll see you guys there. 

Marcel: 

Looking forward to it. And thank you, Bradley. 

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