#742 – An 8-Figure Amazon Seller From China Tells All

What is really happening behind the scenes with top Chinese Amazon sellers? In this episode, Bradley travels to Shenzhen, China, to sit down with Bennett, an eight-figure seller who shares a rare inside look at how serious Amazon sellers in China are building and scaling brands. Helping guide the conversation is Freeman Cui from Helium 10’s Shenzhen office, who serves as Bennett’s translator throughout the interview. From launching his first cleaning product in 2017 to growing one brand to $15 million in annual sales, Bennett breaks down the mindset, systems, and strategies behind his success.

One of the most eye-opening parts of the conversation is Bennett’s take on black hat tactics. He confirms that those tactics still exist but says Amazon is making it harder for bad actors to survive in the long term. His belief is that the future belongs to compliant sellers who focus on quality products, strong branding, and long-term stability. That alone makes this episode a must-listen for sellers who assume all Chinese competitors play the same game.

Bennett also opens up about how his team uses data to make smarter decisions across product research, market expansion, keyword strategy, and advertising. He shares how Helium 10 tools like Market Tracker 360, Search Query Analyzer, Cerebro, and Helium 10 Ads help his team spot trends, avoid bad opportunities, optimize PPC, and launch products with more precision. He also walks through how they research trends from Amazon, Etsy, customer feedback, and even physical retail stores.

This episode is packed with practical insights on global expansion, AI-driven advertising, and product launches, but it also gives listeners something more valuable: perspective. Bennett explains why Brazil could be one of the biggest untapped Amazon opportunities, why patience is one of his company’s unfair advantages, and why his team is aiming to grow from $15 million to $50 million in the coming years. If you want to understand how elite Chinese sellers actually think, this episode pulls back the curtain.

In episode 742 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Bennett, and Freeman discuss:

• 00:00 – Why Chinese Sellers Envy US And European Sellers
• 00:41 – Meeting Bennett In Shenzhen, China
• 01:04 – Bennett’s Background And First Amazon Product
• 02:17 – Building A $15 Million Cleaning Brand
• 02:52 – How He Uses Market Tracker 360 To Find Opportunities
• 04:12 – A Product Win And A Market Shift That Saved Money
• 05:50 – The Truth About Black Hat Tactics In China
• 07:48 – How Search Query Analyzer Changed His PPC Strategy
• 10:07 – Three Unique Strategies Behind His 8-Figure Growth
• 12:28 – Why Brazil Is His Top Expansion Market
• 14:02 – How He Uses AI Advertising And Where It Still Falls Short
• 17:53 – His New Product Launch Strategy And $50 Million Goal

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today, I’m in China to talk directly with an eight-figure seller who gives us the inside scoop on what’s happening over there and why Chinese sellers envy sellers from the US and Europe and why you might have to worry less about black hat tactics from China. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody. And welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host Bradley Sut 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.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. We are back here in Shenzhen, China, and we’ve got a seller we’re going to talk today and his name is Bennett. Bennett, how’s it going?

Bennett:

Hello. I’m Bennett. I’m a Shenzhen seller.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Now Bennett is not confident with his English. So we’ve got Freeman here from Helium 10, our Shenzhen office here, who’s going to be translating. Freeman, thank you for joining us.

Freeman:

Thank you everyone. Nice to meet you guys.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So now let’s get into Bennett’s backstory. Where in China were you born and raised?

Freeman:

Chaozhou is a city like 300 kilometers from Shenzhen.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. All right. And where did you attend university?

Freeman:

Guangzhou.

Bradley Sutton:

What did you study?

Freeman:

Advertising.

Bradley Sutton:

Advertising. Okay. Well, when you graduated, did you start working at all in advertising?

Freeman:

After graduation, so he started his own business. It’s a wine that’s selling snack products domestically in China.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Interesting. What year was this?

Freeman:

About 2017.

Bradley Sutton:

2017. When did you discover Amazon?

Freeman:

Oh, it’s the same year in 2017.

Bradley Sutton:

And what was the first product you launched on Amazon?

Freeman:

Oh, it’s the cleaning stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

How did that product do?

Freeman:

Oh yeah. It’s succeed.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Are you still selling those same products today?

Freeman:

Yeah. It’s still selling. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, okay. Is this your main brand?

Freeman:

Yeah. One of the main category. And he has a partner in this category, so they have jointly launched this business to make more than 100 million Chinese yuan.

Bradley Sutton:

So in US dollars, his best year of sales, about how much gross sales is it?

Freeman:

15 million US dollar. Yeah. One five.

Bradley Sutton:

15 million. Okay. So that’s very popular. Is that only one brand? Or that’s more than one brand.

Freeman:

Yeah. Only one brand and all global marketplaces.

Bradley Sutton:

How can we find this brand on Amazon? What’s the name?

Freeman:

Yeah. It’s the J E H O N N, the brand name.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And it’s all cleaning supplies or it’s different products.

Freeman:

Yeah. Cleaning and all home stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

What year did you discover Helium 10?

Freeman:

2021.

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find out about Helium 10? Not many people in China know about Helium 10.

Freeman:

Another seller recommended it.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. What is your favorite tool that you use in Helium 10?

Freeman:

Market Tracker 360.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. How do you use a Market Tracker 360?

Freeman:

Yeah, it’s a long story. So he used to, you know, to calculate the market size of a niche market. And also to find the trends of this market and understanding the market share and the market ranks in this niche market. And they can spot, you know, many, you know, new brands and some new opportunities in this market. So their product development strategies highly, you know, relied on those analysis on new opportunities. So in the next year or the next product launch, so they spot those opportunities and then they can exactly know how many sales they should make to hold that marketplace.

Bradley Sutton:

So what’s an example of like a product they launched where they used, you know, market tracker 360 and an example of something that made them say, yes, we want to do this, but maybe another example where they looked at the data and they’re like, you know what, this is maybe is not good for us.

Freeman:

Yeah. So, yeah, there was a case that is the Christmas artificial flowers. You know, people use that for Christmas deco and in the previous year, they have been spotted an opportunity that is, they found a seller, a brand that is selling, you know, large size Christmas flowers. It’s like 48 inches to 60 inches. But in that large size, Christmas flowers, there’s not much, you know, competition there. So in the following year, they also launched, tried to launch that large size 48 inch Christmas flowers, and then successfully made 500 Southern US dollars in that statement for that product.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. What about an example where they say, I mean, if he knows the exact example that’s great but what about an example of where they looked at the and it stopped them and maybe it saved them from losing money because of something they saw.

Freeman:

Yeah. They have another brand that is for the e-bike. The brand name is free sky. So they have been, you know, find out that in the US marketplace Amazon, the whole market trend is not going anymore, but they find out that in the Canada marketplace Amazon alley is still keep going. So they just help them to, you know, to adjust or rebalance the resources to Canada from American and then help them really help them.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Now thinking back in general, you know, something that a lot of American sellers are always thinking. Oh, every Chinese seller is doing black hat, you know, tactics. Is that true?

Freeman:

Yes, it is. Do you want to any? Yeah. Interesting because, recently, he’s trying to expand the team. So he interviewed a lot of candidates. Actually almost half of those applicants, you know, trying to find the, you know, roles for the hacks. Almost a half. Yeah. From Shenzhen.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. All right. No. So, then American sellers, it’s more dangerous for them to do black hat strategy because they can get kicked off and they don’t have so many other accounts, you know, like a lot of Chinese sellers, they can do these things. How can American sellers compete with Chinese sellers who can do these black hat strategies? Is it possible?

Freeman:

He made a point that he thinks that for the black hacks, actually those will be less and less space for them to grow or succeed. Yeah. Because what he witnessed is that Amazon, yeah, is changing, always changing their policies and trying to, you know, get those bad behaviors out. For example that, you know, have a stricter, you know, verification of the accounts. They have to, you know, for the video verification of the business owner. And also recently we also noticed that the review shell policy has been also changed.

Freeman:

So he thinks that the future competition will not compete with those, you know, black hacks. But those Chinese sellers who has been committed to the good product and to the branding, to the marketing. So those all compliant sellers will have more and more opportunities.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So Market Tracker 360, his favorite tool. What’s his second favorite tool in Helium 10?

Freeman:

Yeah, yeah. Search Query Analyzer.

Bradley Sutton:

How are you using the data from Search Query Analyzer? First, what are you looking for in the tool? And then what strategy are you implementing because of what you see there?

Freeman:

Okay. So first I think that this tool is very highly efficient because it’s AI powered. So, I can actually through this tool to have a, you know, full picture of the traffic structure of my products. So in this process, actually we can find those, for example, high coercion rate keywords. And also the tool is very, you know, good to structure or organize those keywords into different groups.

Freeman:

And he told me, what should we do to those keywords? Should we increase bids? Should we, you know, put more advertising budgets on that? So this is highly efficient as saving me a lot of time to, you know, optimize my advertising and the whole, you know, listing SEOs or something.

Bradley Sutton:

Before Search Query Analyzer tool was released, was he using the Search Query Performance data just by going to seller central or this, this was the first time he started using this data?

Freeman:

Yes. Because of the search query and analyzer, then we put a lot of more time on looking at those data. Yeah. Previously we actually rarely go to seller central to, you know, to search for this Search Query Performance data. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Why didn’t he do it before? I mean, I’m assuming it’s because it takes so long, you know, to do it. So you have to download the report one eight by one week, right?

Freeman:

One month. So, yeah.

Freeman:

Yeah. We used to download all those data. Yeah. But we actually sort of not have many ideas how to analyze those data. So we haven’t found any, you know, interesting findings from those downloaded data. So this actually is to, you know, actually broaden our, you know, views to how to analyze and use those data.

Bradley Sutton:

I want him to think about three unique strategies. It doesn’t have to be Helium 10 related, just anything in general, because obviously to get to $15 million, not everybody can do it. And if you’re just doing the same thing as everybody else, it’s not going to get to that level. So what would he say is the top three things that he thinks is some unique thing, big or small, that his team is doing that allowed him to reach this success?

Freeman:

So the first, I think, one of the important factor is that we have deeply, you know, collaborated with our logistic company. It’s a manufacturer and it’s a factory. So that’s make sure that our product development can be very quick. And also we can make sure our product quality is much assured. So, I think this is the first factor. So the second scene that, I think is that, we are patient.

Freeman:

Yeah, because we always, you know, be compliant. We never try those black hacks. So our, you know, account, our brand is always safe and stable. So we don’t have to, you know, wake up at midnight or something. Yeah. So, the other thing is that, also we keep a global perspective. So we trying to expand our brand, our product, not just in the United States, we expand to the global marketplaces, including, you know, Europe, Japan, and also other marketplaces.

Freeman:

The third factor, I think, is that our operational strategy. So always, we only make, you know, data driving strategies. We use a lot of, you know, tools including Helium 10. So, like I said before that, we used Helium 10 to spot new opportunities and also we spend a lot of time to, you know, like download advertising data and also make use of other, you know, tools to help us to, analyze those data. And based on the data analytics, we optimize our PPC, our marketing strategy, this make us success.

Bradley Sutton:

Hey, I’m assuming maybe he started in Amazon USA and then expanded to other marketplaces. If there’s other brands out there who are only selling in Amazon USA, which country would he suggest entering? Like that has a very good potential on profit.

Freeman:

Brazil.

Bradley Sutton:

Brazil. Why?

Freeman:

Why I’m saying that is because, you know, Brazil is a big market. That was 300 million, you know, population. And also, this market is a place is a blue ocean. We have a lot of opportunities here and entry barrier to Brazil actually, to be honest is high, but this just, well, the opportunity lies. For example, actually from China shipping to Brazil, it takes around 70,000 US dollar for container. It’s very high. Yeah. The shipping cost is very high, but recently we are also exploring with other sellers that we are trying to get more containers so we can actually lower the cost by half.

Freeman:

And then actually though, we can have a lot of more opportunities there. Yeah, because competition actually is comparatively low in the Brazil marketplaces. So if the Amazon seller, they’re very successful in the US marketplace and they want to take some risks. I think Brazil will be a good one.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you using Helium 10 Ads to manage your Amazon advertising?

Freeman:

Yes. I like Helium 10 Ads a lot. And actually the specifically is the AI Advertising. Actually now around a 30% of our advertising spend has been, you know, managed by the AI Advertising of Helium 10.

Bradley Sutton:

How do you decide which campaigns you want on the AI Advertising or which campaigns you’re making just your own rules in ads for?

Freeman:

Yeah. Mostly for, you know, for new product launch, we usually, you know, take the control by ourselves. But for some major or already, you know, growing products, we can, you know, let the AI to manage them and help us to try and to find a more new traffics. From our observation that our advertising of Helium 10, you know, is very good at those older campaigns. We find that all the pains of the advertising just performed very well, but in those, you know, manual keywords, yeah, campaigns, I found that there are still something to improve. So we, you know, doing more time on that part. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

When he uses AI Advertising, about how much time and money does that save? You know, cause obviously if they’re not using AI every day or once a week or whatever, they’re having to have an employee actually go in there and make manual adjustments. So, what’s the time savings, the AI versus what they used to do?

Freeman:

Yeah. Actually, we have a lot of, you know, yeah, experience in this question. Yeah. First, actually, is save us a lot of time. Actually, we already put, like I said 30% of our ad spend on advertising. So our, you know, our staff can spend more time on other, you know, things like product development or some things.

Freeman:

And we also find out that for some, you know, products the AI Advertising actually have a lower ACoS than our manually do. For example, some products AI Advertising can keep the ACoS at 25%, but our, you know, the PPC team, our staff for manual work is like 30%. Uh, but actually though, it’s still, you know, an exploration, you know, for some products, AI Advertising is not as good as our, you know, manually, a managed campaigns but for those campaigns, we also, you know, it’s a good thing because we can decide how many budget to allocate, allocate to those, you know, different products. That’s a good thing. But for now, I think I still have a lot, you know, expectations for AI Advertising from Helium 10 is very good.

Freeman:

We already have a 30% of the ad spend, but yeah, I’m expecting that they have more futures because now, we are saying that all the campaign is doing good, but the keywords, uh, still have to be improved. And also now Amazon, the whole website, the whole algorithm is now just keyword based. Now it’s also, they have launched, uh, AMC, so it’s more, you know, audience based and also Amazon itself also launched some AI features. They invited us to, you know, do some beta, you know, test. We find that some of their AI capabilities are very good. Especially in the keyword levers. So we want to say more, you know, good product features from Helium 10.

Bradley Sutton:

Walk us through your new product strategy. All right. First of all, how do you find a new product opportunity? What do you do to, you know, find the right keywords? How are you making the listing? What is your launch strategy? You know, are you sending outside traffic? Are you doing low prices, coupons, high PPC bids? How are you making sure a new product, new launch is successful?

Freeman:

Okay. So first I want to talk about how we, you know, find those new products. We run a lot of, you know, test launch. So we send small batches and also we look at the data of the previous sales of our products. We trying to, you know, understand why some of the products are just selling good. Is there any, you know, specific elements that make it a success or just from the customer feedback, what kind of features that maybe, you know, just hit the trend. For example, for our e-bike category, you know, we found out that, you know, that was some trend that’s become more popular.

Freeman:

For example, two motors and also the, you know, the wider, you know, tails, make it more popular. So we actually, you know, take those trends and also we trying to, you know, look at a more, you know, resources or look from a wider, you know, places to get the trends of those products. For example, the supermarket, we went there to find those, you know, good products. I mean the home category. Yeah. For the good design that we’re also, you know, paying attention to that.

Freeman:

And also for some, products like the flowers or something, we turn to Etsy, to find, you know, interesting products. So we’re trying to learn, what kind of elements make them so good. So this is the, how we, you know, find or run our first run of the product research. We have a whole system of how to launch a successful new product. Yeah. First, we, you know, very care about the listings, including the pictures and also the A plus content. So we, for every new product launch, we have to make sure every listing are, you know, promotion ready. So we find a lot of influencers. They then will help us to, you know, make very professional videos for our products.

Freeman:

So, once the listing is really ready, so we will, you know, to have a, you know, whole marketing strategy. So first that we never do, you know, low price or something. Actually, we trying to take, make use of the honeymoon period for new listing. So in this period, one, we only, you know, only allow for one month. Yeah. In this one month, we will spend a lot advertising, you know, the budget. We use sponsor products, sponsored brand, and also sponsor brand video, for those campaigns to, you know, to try to harvest, as many new keywords, new traffic for our listing as possible. Yeah.

Freeman:

But actually, most of us spend still, you know, has been spent on sponsored products, like a 70%, the other 30% will be on SP or SPV. Yeah. And then, besides that, we’re also, you know, trying to, you know, connect some of the, you know, influencers, the alternate resources. We also ask them to make some promotions and also we use the program like Amazon Creators, to also help us to promote. And usually, within one month period, uh, the Amazon platform will recommend us to any lightning deals. We’re definitely participating in those lightning deals and trying to get as much sales and as much keywords to our list as possible.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So you’ve mentioned Market Tracker 360 and, and also Search Query Analyzer. Any other Helium 10 tools your team are regularly using and how are they using it?

Freeman:

Thank you. You reminded me of another, you know, the highly frequently used tool is Cerebro. Yeah. And also one, you know, data metric I want to, you know, mention here is that because it’s the core of our, you know, advertising strategy that is CPR, you know, for maybe many sellers who don’t know that is actually give us a number that for each keyword, how many, you know, sales we have to made in eight days to get that product to list in the top half of that keyword. Yeah. Search. Yeah. So why is this one is important? Because, you know, Amazon is still, you know, keyword based. Yeah. It is a search traffic is most important to the success of each product. So in our, you know, advertising strategies way, first thing we have to figure out which keywords we have to select.

Freeman:

In different phases, how many budget we should spend on each code, each keywords and which keywords are the most, either one to get at least in the top of the search. So based on CPR, yeah. And also by, you know, referring to the conversion rate and the CPC, we can actually make very, you know, specific and accurate plan for each different keywords. It’s just like one bed after another. Yeah. It’s one kid after another. We spend a budget on those keywords and then we will have a higher search volume or higher CPR products. It actually very important because they are a lot of money. For example, if there’s a keyword, we spend a lot of money, we get a lot of sales, but that sales is not, you know, enough to make it to the top of the search, actually, this is not a good strategy.

Bradley Sutton:

What’s the future hold for your brand? What your goals for the future? And maybe I come back here in two years. What would you like to be able to tell me about what you accomplished?

Freeman:

Yeah. Yeah. I like this topic. Yeah. It’s make me excited. Yeah, it’s make me excited. Yeah. So first I will give you a number. Yeah. I want to, after two years, I want to, you know, increase our sales. The general revenue. I want to reach to 50 million. It’s 5 million. So it’s like three times increase from now. How to make that? Actually we have a vision that we want to expand globally. With them, a new markets like the Brazil, I mentioned the Latin American, like the Argentina, Columbia, and all those market, we want to, you know, have a try. Yeah. Secondly, we also, you know, making investment, also making exploration to other, you know, marketplace or China.

Freeman:

For example, our, you know, our own D2C website in the February, our e-bike brand have make 1 million sales as the revenue. Yeah. In the February. So we are excited about that. Yeah. And we also want to open an office in America so we can operate locally. So maybe, in 2027, you know, our next episode, I can, you know, meet you in the United States.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Well, I wish you the most of success.

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