#768 – Amazon Seller Strategies From the Accelerate Floor

What does growth look like for someone launching their first product compared with sellers running multimillion-dollar businesses? Recorded live on the floor of Amazon Accelerate, this episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast brings together seven sellers with different backgrounds, business models, and lessons to share. Bradley Sutton starts with Sky Balukonis, who grew a disposable napkin business from roughly $40,000-$50,000 in first-year sales to a projected $1.4 million annually. Sky explains how disciplined reinvestment, careful cash flow management, and premium positioning helped an everyday product stand out.
Danial Khosravi and Nick Karafilov share how they use Claude connected to Helium 10 through MCP to research keywords, improve listing copy, and prepare a data-backed presentation for a Walmart buyer. They also explain how advice from a Helium 10 Elite call with Bradley pushed them to build their Walmart presence, prepare retail-ready packaging, and generate TikTok content. Those efforts helped put them in front of a buyer, with a potential retail agreement still pending at the time of recording. Meanwhile, first-time Amazon seller Todd Gabel discusses launching a windshield sticker-removal film and using AI-assisted research to understand keywords and competitors.

Youseong Ha of Neudorff offers a different perspective on product selection, explaining why he moved from skincare into the more challenging gardening and pesticide category. His approach centers on finding unmet customer needs and delivering meaningful product differentiation. Brothers Ben and Josh Garmon then share lessons from a business generating approximately $20-30 million annually through manufacturer partnerships and e-commerce operations. Their focus is profitability, dependable execution, and a roughly even split between FBA and FBM, with merchant fulfillment giving them flexibility to assemble bundles from shared inventory.

The episode closes with Sugam Dhal from Amazon’s Middle East global selling team, who discusses expansion opportunities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and potential incentives for qualifying brands. Across these conversations, the message is clear: growth comes from understanding customers, managing resources carefully, and acting on opportunities with purpose. Whether you are preparing your first listing or managing millions in sales, choose one lesson you can apply now. A stronger product, a smarter workflow, or a better fulfillment strategy could become the foundation for your next stage of growth.

In episode 768 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and his guests discuss:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:42 – Sky Balukonis-Gee’s Seller Journey
• 04:23 – Reinvesting Profits And Premium Product Positioning
• 06:45 – Meet Danial Khosravi And Nick Karafilov
• 09:43 – Using Claude And The Helium 10 MCP
• 13:15 – Preparing A Brand For Walmart Retail
• 16:42 – Todd Gabel’s First Amazon Product
• 20:35 – Youseong Ha’s Move Into Gardening Products
• 26:52 – Finding Gaps And Meeting Customer Needs
• 28:31 – Ben And Josh Garmon’s Manufacturer Partnerships
• 32:16 – Combining FBA, FBM, And Flexible Bundles
• 33:55 – Middle East Expansion With Sugam Dhal

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Interviews with seven sellers on the floor of Amazon Accelerate, including a couple who got some advice from somebody and now are going to have their products in Walmart nationwide. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Seller’s Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That’s a completely BS-free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And this episode was filmed live on the floor of Amazon Accelerate recently. And what I did was I had my little mobile setup and would just go around and interview some cool people who are willing to share their brand. And not everybody was willing to share their brand, but share their brand story, at least with us. And so we’ve got some cool interviews today with people who have never been on the podcast before and people at completely different stages in their journey. We got a couple of sellers who are doing millions. We got some doing more than that. We’ve got some who are just starting out. So, it’s nice to kind of like to see the variety of different people who are at different stages in their e-commerce journey at Accelerate. And that’s what Helium 10 is here for. You know, we’re here to hear everybody’s story and help people out, you know, regardless of what stage you’re in. So check out some of the strategies. Everybody’s got some unique strategies here and hope you enjoy this episode.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, here at Amazon Accelerate, and we’ve got somebody, Sky, who just stumped me with a call. Say again, your college that you went to?

Sky:

Brandeis.

Bradley Sutton:

And where is that?

Sky:

It’s in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. All right. And so what did you study when you went there?

Sky:

Business management.

Bradley Sutton:

And then-

Sky:

Only there a year and a half. So I studied kind of a lot of the classes I took were just in topics that I enjoyed.

Bradley Sutton:

And then when did you discover e-commerce?

Sky:

Um, the senior, my senior year of high school is when I started my business.

Bradley Sutton:

What were you, so you, you started selling on Amazon when you were in high school?

Sky:

Started my business. Yeah, or the senior year. So going into my first year of college.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what were you doing like arbitrage or did you make your own private label brand?

Sky:

Um, it started with one product. It was a, uh, contract manufactured and I really wanted to have something manufactured and I saw opportunity with their first product and I, it was successful. So I discovered there was just a lot more, um, you know, space to grow within that same niche.

Bradley Sutton:

So senior year of high school, first year of college, what was your gross revenue? Like from this Amazon side hustle?

Sky:

Yeah, we ended the year with three or four products, maybe like 40,000 or 50,000 or something.

Bradley Sutton:

Much better than, uh, getting that same amount at Domino’s or, or, or working like that, like most everybody else. And then is that, did the, did the business start getting more successful? Is that why you left college or how did that happen?

Sky:

Yeah. So I left college for that purpose. Um, and I just thought like if I was allocating all of my focus to my brand, then it could grow much quicker and it’s kind of ultimately like what I always wanted to do is just run a business. So I knew that I probably wouldn’t graduate college because I wasn’t taking classes that even like were applicable to my major. So it was sort of always, I don’t know. I’ve always been kind of arrogant. I have a lot of belief in myself and I knew that it would succeed. So, yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

So, so fast forward to now, like what are you projected to finish this year in, in gross sales?

Sky:

Uh, it’s going to be like 1.4 or something.

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent. Excellent. And, um, how long have you been using Helium 10?

Sky:

Uh, like two and a half years or maybe two years. I, I’m not sure.

Bradley Sutton:

What do you, uh, what’s, what’s your favorite tools?

Sky:

Um, the, uh, I think it’s called Cerebro or yeah. That’s where you put the ASINS in. You can put 10 of them. I think that’s actually wildly useful. Like we use that constantly. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

So how did you grow from $40,000 a year to 1.4 million? Like, like what were some of the unique things that you’re doing? Was it the way you launched products? Was it the way you do advertising? Like not everybody can scale, you know, like that. So what, what would you attribute some of that success to other than Helium 10, of course?

Sky:

Um, so I never raised capital and, you know, I was very fortunate when I was in college. You know, I wasn’t paying for my own education, so I was able to allocate all of my own capital into the business. And so I would just reinvest everything. And especially in the early days, I really was quite maniacal about, um, return on invested capital. And I kind of discovered that, you know, if a product has a really good ROI and we’re able to, you know, take that cash very quickly and reallocate it into more products, then we can grow quite quickly. So it was just like really understanding our cashflow and how fast we could duplicate our, our money while also, you know, making products that people really love and that are really beautiful.

Bradley Sutton:

How can people find you on Amazon so they can check out your brand?

Sky:

Um, it’s Styxies, S-T-X-Y-S.

Bradley Sutton:

And what kind of products is that?

Sky:

Disposable napkins.

Bradley Sutton:

Disposable napkins. Who’d have thought that disposable napkins could be a $1.4 million business? Is there something unique about it or what’s your angle?

Sky:

Yeah. So a lot of our competitors are Chinese factories selling direct to consumer, and they don’t really understand the American taste, the American market. Oftentimes they’re competing on price alone. And within this category, customers are usually not really that sensitive to price. What they care about is a product that is of a premium quality. And that’s really beautiful. And if they have an important event, um, it, you know, $20 versus $10 doesn’t make a huge impact to them, you know, in a wedding you’re spending thousands and thousands, so that’s just like a penny. And, um, ultimately what they want is something that they can trust and something that, uh, resonates with them on a deep level and both through the product itself and through the way that we position our products, you know, the photography, the copy, we take a very different approach to like most Amazon brands, like we don’t really look at what they’re doing to get, to drive inspiration. We kind of look at outside sources and that’s given us a huge advantage.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Awesome. Well, wish you the best of success.

Sky:

Thank you. Lovely to meet you.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. We are here at a different place. Lighting is bad here, but hopefully you guys can see us. Uh, we got a couple of Helium 10 Elite members. Why don’t you introduce yourself?

Daniel:

Daniel.

Nick:

And I’m Nick.

Bradley Sutton:

Where are you guys based?

Daniel:

Toronto.

Nick:

Also Toronto.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Is that where you guys are born and raised?

Daniel:

Uh, born in Dubai, raised in Canada.

Nick:

I’ve always been in North, just North of Toronto, born and raised.

Bradley Sutton:

You guys go to university in Canada?

Daniel:

Uh, we actually went, yeah, we did, but we went to elementary school together. That’s how we know each other. And then, uh, I went to university in college in Canada and then now we do Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what year did you discover e-commerce?

Daniel:

20. Okay. Discover 2017. I went to Waterloo back then. And I actually, the founders of Shopify are from Waterloo. So I actually had a meeting with them back then. Uh, the hamster wheel didn’t spin, so we didn’t do anything until 2021 when he hit me up one day.

Nick:

Yeah, I started, um, doing some e-commerce in 2018, right before COVID. Um-

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon or what?

 Nick:

No, it was selling things on Reddit, which I should not have been selling, but, um, but since then that started like a kind of idea and then yeah, I started 2020 really blew up in 2021 when we started together.

Bradley Sutton:

So 2021, is that when you launched your Amazon business?

Daniel:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what was your first product that you were selling?

Daniel:

Ooh, it was, uh, teeth whitening products.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, that sounds kind of a competitive.

Daniel:

Very competitive, but, uh, we had no problem selling it. Good marketing. Everything was, it went very well.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what was your biggest year of selling gross sales on Amazon? Is it going to be this year or was it a different year?

Daniel:

It’s going to be this year. Every year you’re growing, you have to grow. If not, that’s bad.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, so about what number are you going to hit you think this year?

Nick:

What number? Um, mid seven. Yeah, just about mid seven.

Bradley Sutton:

And, uh, are you still in the dental game or completely different? You stick to one, uh, kind of product line, or are you just selling a wide variety of products?

Daniel:

So we have some different brands. We’re still in the dental game, but, uh, also we’re in, um, sports and wellness, sports and goods. So like, uh, weightlifting stuff and actually firearm related stuff. And we also have another brand for health supplements and whatnot that we’re starting to grow slowly.

Bradley Sutton:

Other than Amazon USA, what other platforms are you on?

Nick:

So we have obviously Amazon Canada. Uh, we do Amazon, UAE, UK, expanding more into the EU. And then we do Walmart US, Shopify, uh, TikTok shop, and we’re hopefully going to get into Walmart retail as well.

Bradley Sutton:

How long have you guys been using Helium 10?

Daniel:

10, about 2022. Amazing. Highly recommend it. I’m not paid for this at all.

Bradley Sutton:

So what’s your, what’s been your go-to tools? Like when you first started compared to now.

Daniel:

First started go-to is definitely just like, you know, Cerebro or Listing Builder or Helium 10 Ads back in the day, which is now Helium 10 ads depends. Everyone’s different. I’m not super like techie. So the UI that Helium offered without Helium 10 Ads was phenomenal with the colors and just the ease of the dashboard and everything was probably my favorite. And now, especially with Claude. Amazing.

Nick:

Yeah. Like the right now, the Claude, uh, Helium MCP connection is insane. Like we use it a lot for keyword research. You can pull all the information, you know, you pull all the keywords and then you can also see how you rank in those keywords and then adjust the copy based on that. And yeah, it’s just amazing.

Bradley Sutton:

So for you, the biggest advantage of the MCP, is it time savings or. Are you able to make like comparisons and things that you just weren’t even able to do in the, using the regular Cerebro.

Daniel:

So time is the first foremost that like it’s the most valuable asset we all have, right? Time-saving is incredible with it. And I’m not joking. And then after that, it’s, it’s able to present you things. Cause you know, you can chat with the AI and whatnot and give, it can present you certain things that you didn’t think about considering and certain points, and I actually use Claude MCP with Helium and whatnot. Um, literally a day before I met with a Walmart buyer and we created a presentation from data that we use with the Helium MCP and whatnot, and we pulled all the information we needed. We made the presentation the night before and we showed it to the Walmart buyer and I think we got the contract. It’s not set in stone, but I’m not going to lie. The Helium thing made like, it’s sped up so much of the process. It made it so easy to pull data. I was able to pull all time return rate on per SKU basis per marketplace basis and have the data to back it and show it. It’s amazing how much time that would have taken me to just go pull out information, decipher it through Excel sheets, even if I still fed it into AI. One prompt, that was it.

Bradley Sutton:

How about you? Any other use cases that we haven’t mentioned for Claude MCP?

Nick:

Um, for the Claude MCP, like I think, I don’t know, from what I’ve noticed is, is listing copy, keyword research. Those are the truly the biggest thing.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So, so how do you, um, how do you use the MCP for, for the listings?

Nick:

So we get Claude to go to the, see all the listing information and get a bunch of information about the product. And then it goes through Helium and uses all of Helium tools to pull the keywords that it thinks are relevant. And then also checks the ad keyword or ad rank, um, per keyword and include those into the listing copy so that we can not only rank through ads, but we can also rank naturally through the keywords that we include on our listing. And it’s been, it’s been really good and it’s really cool how we can use Claude to see our keyword rank. And maybe if we want to do any manual changes to our listing copy.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, I know you, you’re starting to do some stuff with the MCP and, um, Helium 10 ads, but before that, just with a regular Helium 10 ads, what was your flow? Like, did you set a whole bunch of custom rules and just look at it once a week, or what was your flow before?

Daniel:

So I tried the custom rules, but because I was managing a lot, it became kind of like a jack of all trades, master of nothing. So I just stuck with a more simple SOP situation and update the ads once every two weeks, just based on that.

Bradley Sutton:

And so now with MCP, uh, what are you doing or what are you planning to do with like, you know, some skills or, or some custom prompts?

Daniel:

First, I’m building a Claude scale with my current SOP on how I like my ads to be done with certain limitations and, um, you know, other like considerations as well. And then with that, I’m making the Claude skill and then I’ll be using that skill along with the MCP connection. So it’s going to give me like a Claude recommendation. It’s going to give me based on my own SOP recommendation. And then from there, I’ll have the gentleman that I hired for my ads on my team now, and he’ll be monitoring that to make sure it’s all good. Claude doesn’t do something crazy and it’s the workflow is insane. Now the time saving is incredible. It’s so much that now I have time for DS,P AMC and all other stuff that I didn’t have time for before.

Bradley Sutton:

I like it. I like it. Now you were telling me a story about how we were on a Elite one-on-one call and we were talking about Walmart. Uh, you want to talk a little bit more about that story?

Nick:

Yeah. So, I mean, we scheduled a call with Bradley and we’re like, you know, what should we do with our products? Like how do we, what’s next? Right. And like he said, Walmart, even though Walmart doesn’t do the numbers, just get the presence there, TikTok shop, make the presence, get, make the product packaging, retail facing the UGC, make the listings nice. And who knows, maybe one day in the future when Walmart comes, they want to see something. They want to see something on their platform. And because of that one phone call, we, with Bradley, while he was driving, um, we did everything that he said.

Bradley Sutton:

I was on Tesla autopilot. I was not dry. I was not driving at this phone.

Nick:

It’s a hole in the wheel. But because of that, we got our front, we got in right in front of, uh, with the Walmart buyer and they liked the product and yeah, hopefully we get a contract out of that, but they really liked it and it looks like it’s, you know, it’s going to be fruitful.

Daniel:

The buyer saw we had the Walmart product in Walmart. It was PPC bid on Walmart and it was organically ranked number one when he searched it up. Bradley also told us to make the packaging retail ready just in case. And he said, get generate that UGC from TikTok. We’re making no money on TikTok. Well, we got the UGC out of it. We put it on the Amazon listings, which actually directly increased some conversions. And we put it on the Walmart listings. The Walmart buyer was like, he was like, sorry, he was loving it. You know, the whole like atmosphere that we created and it’s like our brand for that product. It’s like one or two SKUs on that. So it’s phenomenal. And that’s just pushing us to do more now. One phone called Bradley.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s reason enough to be on the Helium 10 Elite program, I guess. All right. Uh, you talk about some, some Helium 10 strategies, Walmart strategies. What’s just a general Amazon strategy? You think something unique that you guys do is a little bit different than, than the run of the mill kind of strategies.

Daniel:

So just strategy on how to increase sales or just in anything in general?

Bradley Sutton:

Anything.

Speaker 3

Okay. I’ll give you guys two things. Okay. One is when you’re getting Vine reviews, if you’re registered in Canada, US and the UK, you can Vine review all three at the same time and get 90 reviews. That is for sure. I don’t believe you can do Mexico or other countries, but I know those three definitely work. That’s one. And the other thing is if you put, okay, so you have your product, your main, your hero image, um, the thumbnail. And then if you put up your product box behind it, and it has to look like a product box, but you’re also, Amazon’s not going to accept it. And if you put the flag of the country that you are selling on, just the flag, not made it, not designed, just the flag that will actually increase conversions. I’ve AV tested this on multiple SKUs at works.

Nick:

Yeah. And I would also say in addition to that, um, one thing that people don’t do much is expand to other countries. Like a lot of people stick with one country cause that’s what they know best. But sometimes if you do just the simplest thing, just open up shop in a new country, don’t even change the listing much and just send some product, see if it sells, might not sell. So just send a couple of units, but you might’ve just, who knows, doubled your sales just because you opened up product to a new country. Obviously there’s a lot of things with VAT and figuring out VAT, but I think Amazon is making it easier now to deal with that. Um, but no, that is a, it’s a good way to maybe increase your sales. Just open up, opening up shop in a new country.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. All right, guys. I wish you the best of success and have a great rest of accelerate.

All right. Thanks a lot.

Daniel:

Thanks.

Nick:

Thank you.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. We’ve got somebody else who’s come, uh, graced us with their presence here at the Helium 10 booth. And this is Todd. Todd, you’re based in Illinois?

Todd:

Chicago. Yep.

Bradley Sutton:

Chicago. Is that where you were born and raised?

Todd:

Born and raised. Licket park, Chicago.

Bradley Sutton:

Hey, uh, what’s the good pizza? Is it Giordano’s?

Todd:

Uh, uh, Buccino’s, Giordano’s, Lou Malnati’s.

Bradley Sutton:

Lou Malnati. That, that, that, that’s the one I’m thinking. That’s my go-to place right there. That’s what I go to play guys. You’ve never had D when you see deep dish pizza and dominoes or, no, that, that’s not the true thing. You have got to go to Chicago for it. Uh, did you go to school out there too?

Todd:

I went to school at university of Texas for one year.

Bradley Sutton:

Longhorn.

Todd:

Had too much fun. Got back in one year, ended up working at a computer store as a stock boy. And, uh, got into IT security and started a business, sold that. And then I started making new products. And that’s why I’m here.

Bradley Sutton:

When did you, uh, what year did you discover e-commerce and was it Amazon or.com or what?

Todd:

I’m about as green as green can be. My product is hitting the shelves like now. So I, this is all new to me.

Bradley Sutton:

So how did you discover e-commerce? And it sounds like you just discovered it recently.

Todd:

Well, I mean, of course I know what Amazon is and, um, I, the product itself is something that someone had a patent on for years and years and years. And I, I thought this is a great product. I know I can do this. The patent’s over. And I thought, well, let’s, let’s give this a try. Let’s try selling it on Amazon. The company that I’m going, that I’m competing against is selling over a million dollars a year on this particular product with no competitors out there. And, um, so I’m really excited to get more engaged in, um, working with Amazon obviously, and then Helium 10 has just been a great tool for me.

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find this product? Were you looking at expired patents or was it something you saw and then you just happened to see that, oh man, this patent’s about to expire?

Todd:

Um, so the product, it’s a, it’s a thin piece of film that goes between, in Chicago, you have a, uh, what’s called a city sticker and you have to have it in your window. It’s like the only city left in the, in the country that requires a city sticker. And so when you put the city sticker on your windshield, um, it stays there permanently for the year. Then you got a razor blade, take it off. So this is a thin piece of film that goes in between the windshield and the sticker. So you just peel it off at the end of the year and it’s a quirky little product, but you know-

Bradley Sutton:

What’s the keyword for that?

Todd:

The keyword would be like, I pass city, uh, removal, uh, film, or I’m, I’m just getting acclimated to keywords. So I don’t even know.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, that’s interesting. So then how did you discover that? I mean, you, you obviously lived there and you knew this was a thing, but is that where it came from? Or were you looking at something on, on Amazon? You saw there was only one seller or how, how did you land on this as like, Hey, this is an opportunity.

Todd:

Well, it’s not only Chicago. So any parking permit or anything that you have to put on your windshield, this will work for, but it was just a product that I, I knew there were high margins. It’s a small little piece of film that goes in between your windshield and a sticker that it costs, you know, 18 cents to make. Um, so when you’re selling something at a higher margin, or I’m trying to figure that whole game out, but, um, it just seemed like a good product and with a lot of profitability.

Bradley Sutton:

So you haven’t even launched on Amazon yet. So how have you been using Helium 10? You know, of course, Helium 10 is made for experienced sellers and huge brands, but new sellers also can, can leverage it. How have you been leveraging Helium 10?

Todd:

Well, quite frankly, I, I interface with Claude, um, with, and it builds keywords for me, it looks at the competitive landscape. Um, so I don’t know all of the modules that you guys use, cause I basically talk to Claude that talks to you and builds my keywords for me and it’s just launching now.

Bradley Sutton:

How can people find it once it’s, maybe by the time this podcast comes out, it’ll be searchable or maybe not, but, uh, what can they search for?

Todd:

Unstuck sticker or unstuck is the name of the company or the brand.

Bradley Sutton:

I love it. I love it. All right. I wish you the best of success. And maybe next year you’ll be coming back. We just interviewed somebody who said she went from 40,000 to 1.4 million. Maybe next year you would have gone from zero to 1 million.

Todd:

I plan on doing that. I’ll see you next year.

Bradley Sutton:

Love it. Sounds good. All right. Back here with our interviews here at Amazon Accelerate. Uh, can you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Youseong:

Hello. Um, my name is Youseong Ha. I’m an e-commerce, uh, manager for the brand named Neudorff.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, how do you spell that brand?

Youseong:

Uh, N-E-U-D-O-R-F-F.

Bradley Sutton:

What do you guys sell?

Youseong:

We sell pesticide, fungicide, anything related to garden. And that we have, we are the best seller in Germany and Europe. And now we have expanded into the U and I had an-

Bradley Sutton:

Pesticide, the thing that everybody doesn’t want their listing to ever have that keyword. And that’s literally what they, what they sell.

Youseong:

Exactly. Trust me. I used to sell skincare product. Once our product has been, has been flagged as a pesticide, that was nightmare. But now I sell those now. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Where, where were you born and raised?

Youseong:

I was born in Korea. I came to the US 2012.

Bradley Sutton:

And where in Korea?

Youseong:

Uh, in Busan.

Bradley Sutton:

You have the Busan accent.

Youseong:

Exactly. You know it, you know it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the accent that I have.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, when you go home, do you take a train to Busan?

Youseong:

Oh yeah. That’s a good question. Now there’s a plane.

Bradley Sutton:

No zombies?

Youseong:

No zombie. Uh, but yeah, fortunately I just, yeah, no train is a phobia.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you go to US for like university or why did you come to US?

Youseong:

So, yeah, uh, my sister went to army here and then, uh, she had a very fortunate opportunity to be a citizen here and she helped me, uh, immigrate to the US and also, yeah, for here I studied, uh, financial economics.

Bradley Sutton:

Where at?

Youseong:

and in Rutgers in New Jersey.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, Rutgers. What’s the, what’s the mascot Rutger? Oh my goodness. What is the mascot there?

Youseong:

I even forgot.

Bradley Sutton:

No school spirit at all. No school spirit at all. Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah. Don’t invite him to the reunion party.

Youseong:

I’m loyal.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So then, um, when did you get into e-commerce?

Youseong:

So it was before COVID, uh, in 2017, 18.

Bradley Sutton:

I say eonje, is when?

Youseong:

Yeah, when. Eonje when that’s exactly right. Yeah. 2018 was the first year that I, uh, had an experience with Amazon selling skincare product.

Bradley Sutton:

And then, uh, before like K-beauty and skincare was so big, you were kind of a little bit early to it.

Youseong:

So the pimple patch products before that, uh, to treat pimple, it was all about like, uh, putting a tape over it. There’s not, or like putting essential oil over it. But with the older K-beauty coming in, pimple patch kind of dominated kind of the, that market and so on. And I was lucky enough to see it from the start and how saturated the market became, uh, later on.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, how in the world did you land on pesticides then to, to, to switch to that?

Youseong:

Exactly. So, um, I wanted to, uh, sell the products that has a proven record of effectiveness and then that has high bar of a standard, uh, uh, the pesticide is heavily regulated by EPA. Um, and then I wanted to sell the product that’s, um, that has kind of a high standard to, for entry. Uh, then, and yeah, and then a company called Noidorf, the company that I work for, uh, wanted to find someone who’s not only, uh, um, knowing how to sell on Amazon, but under really understand the business around Amazon business, what’s required, what kind of operation procedure there needs to be that kind of And I, I also am a project manager in the background, so they wanted to work me and I wanted to work with them to begin selling pesticide, uh, in the U S.

Bradley Sutton:

So what’s the advantage? I mean, we all know the disadvantage of selling pesticide. You gotta be super careful. You probably have had listings like suspended that you didn’t, that were okay. And then you have to get it re-enabled. Like what’s the advantage of selling in such a difficult product like that?

Youseong:

Exactly. So the competition is of course, uh, compared to skincare industry. Uh, it’s a pretty low, you know, comparably, uh, therefore it is really easy to find the market gap in the market. Uh, what kind of function is missing? What kind of, uh, efficacy data that needs to be required, uh, acquired to sell this product, to fill that gap. So it is very interesting to see the market, how, uh, each customer, what to figure out how, what kind of needs customer wants, that kind of stuff. So, which is huge difference that this particular market has over different industry, I guess.

Bradley Sutton:

What was your biggest years of, uh, sales, gross sales for that company? And now, or is this year, your projected sales going to be, is it going to be the biggest year and what, uh, what would it be?

Youseong:

Yeah, seven figures next year. Uh, it’s, it’s going to be third year, uh, into the business. It’s going to be very, uh, successful year that we are projecting, uh, because we’re launching, uh, seven to 10 more products, uh, not only in the US, but also in the Canada, uh, I think it’s going to be very successful. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

How long have you been using Helium 10 and what’s like your main use for the tools? Great.

Youseong:

Yeah. Uh, since 2018, uh, in the second year into Amazon business, uh, first of all, I started using Helium 10 for, um, market research purpose to see, uh, what kind of, um, competitor there are, uh, what kind of review, uh, that our competitor is getting, what kind of reaction that they have, that kind of stuff. Um, that’s how I started it. And the Helium 10 is the tool that, you know, if a brand wants to launch on Amazon, they have access to Helium 10, even before launching on Amazon. So that’s why I wanted to use Helium 10, uh, because of the, due to the best. Data that you guys have, which I’m huge fan of. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Have you started using our MCP or any of our AI tools yet?

Youseong:

Not yet. I’m excited about it.

Bradley Sutton:

What is a unique strategy you think you guys do? It doesn’t have to, it could be Helium 10 related. It could be advertising related. It could be whatever related, something unique that you guys do, uh, that you can share with, uh, with the audience. That is a reason why you guys have been so, so successful.

Youseong:

So I think the reason that we can become successful is coming back to basic, which is becoming kind of a unique, uh, during this, all the transitioning face with the old AI, with all the star bangles stuff that’s happening. So I think you have to, even through this phase, you have to understand the basic, what kind of customer, what kind of function customer needs, what customer wants, that kind of stuff to really offer something valuable to customer is some, uh, is something that you should definitely focus on, even in this space of AI.

Bradley Sutton:

So give an example of how you did that for like one of your product launches. Maybe.

Youseong:

So for instance, uh, one of our product is outdoor ant killer.

Bradley Sutton:

I need that for, for my, for my house.

Youseong:

It kills ants. Uh, however, we didn’t want to launch, uh, just mere me too products. We wanted to launch something that’s really fills the gap to what really costs, what customer really wants. Uh, for instance, there is no product that has this much of efficacy towards ants, but also that’s, uh, that’s, that’s consider, uh, organic products. And we were one of the first people launching that kind of products and fill that gap. And then that’s why I think the coming back to basic, figuring out what customer wants, and then feeling that gap is, are the most important stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

I like it. I like it. All right. Any, uh, quick message in Korean for our Korean selling community out there?

Youseong:

Hi. Annyeonghaseyo. Yeah, you can do it too.

Bradley Sutton:

Fighting.

Youseong:

Fighting. Thank you very much.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Awesome. Thank you.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. We are back here at the Helium 10 booth and we’ve got a couple of brothers here. Uh, brothers from the same mother, I should say not brothers from another mother, uh, can you introduce yourself and where are you guys from?

Ben:

Ben, Louisiana.

Josh:

Yep. Josh, Louisiana.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, did you guys go to a school out there like LSU or something like that?

Bradley Sutton:

Louisiana tech.

Bradley Sutton:

Louisiana tech. I, you’re not supposed to say LSU if they want to. Well, what’s the, uh, what’s the mascot there?

Ben:

Uh, bulldogs.

Bradley Sutton:

Bulldogs. Okay. Did you go there too?

Josh:

I did. I did. Yep.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you guys second generation or are you-

Ben:

Second? So you’re, you’re, you’re fourth generations.

Bradley Sutton:

So four generations have gone to that university.

Josh:

Yes. We applied, we applied for Harvard, didn’t get in. And then so we just went to Louisiana tech.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s a good backup plan there. Uh, what did you guys major in?

Ben:

Hospital administration.

Josh:

Marketing.

Bradley Sutton:

And then when did you guys get into e-commerce?

Ben:

2012 started with eBay. 2015 to Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

And have you, uh, I know your model is a little bit different than others. Uh, did you ever have your own brands on Amazon or you’ve always been like, like, uh, doing this, like partnerships with existing brands?

Josh:

Uh, we have had our own brands on Amazon. We still have a few of our own brands, but for the most part, it’s partnerships with larger manufacturers.

Bradley Sutton:

How does that work? And how did you guys even have the idea to, to go for that model?

Ben:

Um, there’s lots of problems out there and there’s lots of solutions and you just have to be able to solve problems for people.

Josh:

So it’s, uh, a lot of manufacturers like to make money shipping full truck loads, uh, to Walmart and Home Depot or whoever it may be. And so working with them to handle their website, order fulfillment, smaller orders. We’ve had a lot of success with that.

Bradley Sutton:

Um, how long have you guys been using Helium 10?

Ben:

Since about 2016, 17. Yep.

Bradley Sutton:

What’s the main tools that you guys have been using?

Josh:

Uh, refund genie for sure. And then he uses the keyword search for launching campaigns and helping out our partners.

Ben:

Uh, Cerebro. And then just trying to kind of look at what competitors are doing and try to be better.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what are you going to end this year’s sales in approximately? What do you think you’ll hit? And is this your best year that you’ve had?

Ben:

Not best year total, but most profitable. Yep. So we, we really, you got to look at the backend with all the fees and all the overhead that you have as a company. And you’ve got to work on that. Revenue is a great number. Profits better. And so that’s what we focus on.

Bradley Sutton:

And as far as revenue goes, uh, eight figures about?

Ben:

Yes. Eight figures.

Bradley Sutton:

He’s counting. He’s counting the zeros right now.

Ben:

Between 20 and 30 million. So.

Bradley Sutton:

And then, so without giving too much of your secret sauce, I mean, not anybody can just, you know, scale up. So you guys have to have something that you’re doing a little bit differently or that you think it gives you an advantage over others. What’s something that you guys are doing that you think is different than maybe not everybody, but at least that’s somewhat unique.

Josh:

Besides following in your footsteps.

Bradley Sutton:

Hopefully more people.

Josh:

Something that we’re doing different that may be a little bit unique, man. It seems like doing what we say we’re going to do and representing brands with it really well, building trust with brands.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, what about like your on Amazon strategy? Like, like the way you do something in advertising or the way you set up a listing or maybe the way you launch your product, what there do you think might be?

Ben:

Well, you want to make sure you have the ANON algorithm covered and you want to make sure that you have all of your images, all of your titles, descriptions, A-plus content, enough product in the right places at the right time in order to convert, and you also might help you to have good shipping rates too, on your own. Not just relying solely on FBA.

Bradley Sutton:

So, so you do a lot of FBM as well?

Ben:

50-50.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you doing like a seller fulfilled prime or whatever that that’s called, or is it just a regular?

Ben:

Well, once, once they changed the rules in 2021, where you had to hit different metrics, we shut that down and now we’re just on premium shipping and, you know, with shipping it on time and as fast as you can, it puts you above other sellers because Amazon’s manipulating the ship times, handling times in the background, but they can see if you do a good job, they’ll put your promise delivery date way lower than everybody else. And that’s how you beat people.

Bradley Sutton:

Why? I mean, I, I tell everybody you should always have two different, uh, I mean, one listing, but you should always, uh, have a FBA and FBM at the same time for the people who don’t have prime. But it sounds like maybe sometimes that’s not a 50-50 split. That’s like a 95-5 split or something. So for you to have a 50-50 split, it means that you must have a lot of ASINs that are just FBM. So what’s the reasoning behind that? Like, is it because it’s oversized or what, uh, the competition are all FBM or why did you guys choose that?

Ben:

Yeah, you can, you can create endless UPCs as long as you’re working with the manufacturer and using the manufacturer issued UPCs, you can create as many virtual bundles as you want to out of your own inventory and then pick, pack, and ship to those bundles.

Bradley Sutton:

Ah, so, so it’s, it’s allows you to do the bundling without having to, to invest in like 50 different SKUs. And then each of those send like 200 units to Amazon. You can just keep smaller amounts and then, uh, handle that.

Ben:

Yes, correct.

Bradley Sutton:

I like that strategy. All right. All right. Wish you guys the best success in the future.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Next department here. Let’s go ahead and let him introduce it. What’s your name and what department do you work at Amazon?

Sugam:

I’m Sugam. I work in the global selling team in Middle East. All we do is we speak to successful brands in other Amazon locales and help them succeed in the Middle East.

Bradley Sutton:

And when we say Middle East, which countries are involved? I know UAE, KSA, Saudi Arabia. Is there any others or just those two?

Sugam:

So we’re currently focusing on UAE and Saudi Arabia only. We have plans to others, but not yet.

Bradley Sutton:

Why is that region a good opportunity for Amazon brands who are selling right now in other places?

Sugam:

So a couple of points. Look, we’re about a 45 million population purchasing power parity of much higher than Europe per capita. We’re already a $43 billion e-commerce industry growing much faster than the West. And Amazon is the leader in e-commerce in these regions. So it makes a lot of sense for brands already versed with FBA to come in and scale in Middle East.

Bradley Sutton:

What kind of incentives and programs do you have for people who aren’t selling there, like larger brands? And they’re like, hey, well, what do I have? What do you guys have to offer me if I go into this region?

Sugam:

All right. So before I get into what we have to offer, what you need to know is the UAE and KSA are trivially easy to enter as a market. The compliance requirements are much lower. You just need to set up a VAT license in both markets. It takes about two weeks, cost a couple of hundred dollars. But we do for top brands have significant incentives. We’ll cover the cost of freight, give them great offers on referral fees, zero storage fees, free account management, 50% discount on your referral fees, 50% cashback on ad spends for your first year, just to help them experience the market and succeed. And once they get in, we know they’re going to last.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. If one of the brands out there wants to get more information, what should they search for or go to in Seller Central to get more information on how to expand to Middle East?

Sugam:

All right. The best way to do that is reach out to us via email. We have an email ID USA to Mina, all in letters USA, T-O-M-A-N-A at amazon.com.

That’s the best way to reach us.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Sounds good. Guys, if you aren’t selling there yet, it’s time to get started.

Sugam:

See you soon.

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• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
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• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation.
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