#732 – 15 Years #1 on Amazon UK

What does it take to dominate a niche for over a decade without building a giant team or becoming a “warehouse CEO”? Bradley Sutton heads to the UK to visit Cara Sayer at her home in Surrey and unpack the real story behind SnoozeShade: a product used by members of the Royal family and a brand that has stayed on top of its Amazon category for nearly 16 years. Cara’s journey is a classic “scratch your own itch” case study. She needed a better way to protect her baby in a pram from sun, wind, and cold, so she created a stroller “blackout blind” solution that simply didn’t exist at the time.

Cara shares her path from working in PR and marketing (including being on the team that helped launch Amazon in the UK back in the early days) to building a physical product business the hard way—trade shows, prototypes, and getting orders before modern Amazon tools even existed. As competition grew, she explains how the brand evolved through distributors, Amazon Vendor Central, and a messy reseller situation (including 37 resellers on her best-selling product) before she took control and moved into Seller Central. Then comes the lesson every seller needs to hear: revenue isn’t the goal—profit is. When the US market turned into “shark-infested waters” full of unsafe knockoffs and price attacks, Cara made the tough call to exit, protect margins, and refocus on what actually made the business stronger.

This episode is packed with long-game strategy: why being obsessively good at product quality and customer service beats shortcuts, why market focus matters more than “go global fast,” and how Cara uses influencer relationships to build real brand awareness. She also shares how Helium 10 helps her organize keyword research, spot competitor moves, and avoid international keyword mistakes (because US/UK/AU English is not the same). If you want a blueprint for building a durable brand that survives copycats, this one’s gold.

In episode 732 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Cara discuss:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 00:41 – We’re In The UK: Welcome To Cara’s Place
• 04:31 – The Real Reason She Started: A Product Didn’t Exist
• 05:55 – What SnoozeShade Is & Why It Took Off
• 07:13 – #1 In Category For Nearly 16 Years
• 10:22 – Copycats Killed Profit: “Turnover Is Vanity, Profit Is Sanity”
• 12:14 – Her Best Year: Nearly £3M (Now Around £2M)
• 15:48 – Lean Team Setup: Freelancers + VA In The Philippines
• 18:00 – Competitor Tracking + Why Competition Calmed Down
• 21:09 – Royal Family Customers
• 23:42 – TikTok & AI: Awareness Over Amazon-Only Thinking
• 25:16 – International Keyword Differences (UK vs US vs AU)
• 29:25 – Influencers: Relationship-First
• 34:04 – Helium 10: Time Savings and Smarter Keyword Testing

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Imagine leading your niche for over 10 years, have members of the Royal family use your product and grow your brand to multiple seven figures as a single mom. How did she do it? Well, I flew to her house in London to find out. 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 am your host Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So here we are in the UK. I have been so kindly invited into Cara’s home here. My first time.

Cara:

Welcome.

Bradley Sutton:

What? This is London?

Cara:

Well, it’s just outside actually. So it’s called Surrey.

Bradley Sutton:

So we’re in Surrey.

[Cara:]

We are in Surrey.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. And I came here because I wanted to get firsthand, look at the operation. I see her office. She’s got a backyard. Looks great. Let’s just go back to the beginning. You’ve been on the podcast before, but maybe this is the first time the audience has met you. Were you born and raised nearby here?

Cara:

Sort of. Yes. I suppose in American terms, because you will travel so far like in comparison to us. So anywhere that’s about half an hour away is considered a long journey in the UK. I was actually born about half an hour away, but it was a, yeah, so it was sort of brought up around the area ish. But for those who are English listening, that was in Berkshire, which obviously is a huge distance from Surrey. Not really. It’s about 40 minutes. My mom still lives there. And yes, so yeah. And then I moved here when I had my daughter. So it was very, it’s very, very convenient for commuting. So it’s about half an hour into central London.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, before you got into e-commerce, what was your gainful employment like?

Cara:

Well, I don’t know about gainful but I’ve done all sorts of things. So when I was, I worked, when I was backpacking, I worked in an illegal casino in Cape town. I ran a hostel also in Cape town. I worked on a winery in Australia, worked for a TV company. I worked in TV companies actually a couple of times in the UK and in Australia. But I would, my main career, although I don’t, again, I don’t know if I’d call it gainful was public relations, marketing events, that sort of thing.

Cara:

So I actually worked on the team that launched Amazon in the UK when it was a warehouse, a book warehouse in Slough back in, well, it was sort of at the beginning of 2000, I think. Was it 1999? No, I think it was end of 99, beginning of 2000. We also launched eBay. So we had a lot of consumer technology clients. So I used to run Tesco. So Tesco was a grocery store, big grocery store. Like what’s a big grocery store for you? Like I was thinking of Target, but that’s not really food. That’s just small.

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, we got Albertsons, Kroger, things like that in the US.

Cara:

So massive, massive. And we launched a online home shopping for them, which was grocery shopping. And I’ll never forget. It was quite funny. There’s a, I worked for a company. Well, I later worked for the same company actually, which was Hearst, which has Good Housekeeping magazine. And I know Good Housekeeping in the US and we have in the UK. And I remember that they, I rang them up and they were like, oh no, nobody’s going to want someone else to pick their tomatoes or their vegetables, et cetera. And going, I think they probably will. And obviously it’s taken off very well in the UK because obviously we’re a lot smaller country than the US, but yes, it’s funny sort of seeing how people’s attitudes change to technology over the years. So I’ve been sort of involved in that world on and off weirdly, like 25, 30 years.

Bradley Sutton:

Working for the man though and other like corporations and things like that.

Cara:

Horrible. Hated it.

Bradley Sutton:

Is that what caused you to kind of think about, Hey, I want to start something myself?

Cara:

No, not really. My father was an entrepreneur, so he started his own business in the freight industry. So I was brought up with that as a backdrop. So, but then I felt a bit of a failure because of the fact I was then working for the man as opposed to my dad who’d always worked for himself. But I didn’t really want to do, I sort of looked at service, like as in working, setting up my own events company or my own PR agency. But I just hated all of that sort of stuff. It’s just, what I didn’t like about it was the sort of, I say, the unrealistic expectations people have of what’s possible. And also what gets promised to clients is often not what can be actually achieved. And I hated all of that.

Cara:

So I actually, you know, was, as you probably know, we have spoken a few times before, do listen to past episodes because I give Bradley languages in the British language every time. So yeah, the main reason I, I actually started my business with had nothing to do with anything on the fact, I had my daughter and she was a tiny baby and I needed a product that didn’t exist. And so I’ve always been quite sort of, I’m a problem solver. In fact, actually, interestingly, I got diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. And apparently it’s quite a big thing for people with ADHD. They like solving problems. Like we don’t see problems as problems. We see them as challenges. And then unfortunately you go into hyper-focus and, and really probably overly solve it. So, that’s exactly what I did basically. And I created a product that didn’t exist.

Bradley Sutton:

What are you talking about now?

Cara:

So I had Holly October, 2007, and I know that I had registered the domain for the brand name Snoozeshade by the end of 2008. So, I can’t really remember the exact timeline as such. Then I went to see a manufacturer, I think probably in 2008, but then I really started motoring in 2009 because that year was the year that I launched the business and went to a trade show where I showed the product prototype for the first time. And that’s where I’ve got orders and things like that.

Cara:

So obviously this is back in the day pre-FBA and all of that sort of stuff, certainly in the UK. And in fact, I actually sold on Amazon in 2011 in the US and there was no kind of FBA set up or anything. You had to do it all kind of going to the post office type thing.

Bradley Sutton:

Explain the product a little bit like for the need you had and then what does your product actually do?

Cara:

So the need I had was that I was out and about with the, as the Americans called the stroller bassinet, which is-

Bradley Sutton:

What do they call it here?

Cara:

Pram. We’d call them a pram or a carry cart, like pram carry cart. And then I wanted to protect her from, she was born in October, but I was actually a very quite unwell when I was pregnant. So I was in a wheelchair for the first,  well for about nine months. And so I had to learn how to walk again. And then I got very overexcited about walking again and was walking everywhere. So I’d like walk to the shops, going like buy stuff for breakfast, walk to the shops of the pram, buy stuff for lunch, et cetera. And doing this amount of walking with Holly, I obviously wanted to keep her protected from the elements, whether that was the wind, the chill, the sun, et cetera.

Cara:

And the, you know, kind of traditional method of doing that is to kind of throw a blanket over the pram or something to cover up or even using my own coat, putting it over the pram in order to make sure she was nice and protected. Whereas I was freezing my bits off or the coat would fall off and then you run over it with the pram and then you get a nice dry cleaning bill, et cetera. And I just wanted something that I could use that was effectively a sort of blackout blind for the stroller. And that was the original concept that I came up with. And then I developed it and moved on. And then it’s basically become like, it’s been actually a bestseller on Amazon consistently since 2010. It’s been number one in its category for 15 years, nearly 16 years now.

Bradley Sutton:

Here in the UK.

Cara:

In the UK.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah.

Cara:

And actually I think we’re number five in the U S at the moment. I’ve been doing some work relaunching in the U S. Yeah. So anyway, it was a product I needed. Didn’t exist. I launched it. Yeah. That was it really the beginning of the snowball.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Now, you know, since you were fortunate enough to start on Amazon in the early years, you know, when there was not much competition, first of all, obviously by definition, not much competition because you kind of created this product that didn’t exist. But then as the years went on, how did the competition affect you? You know, like, obviously there was no Helium 10, there was no tools, you know, back in the day you didn’t need it because you just throw something up there.

Cara:

To be fair, I wasn’t responsible for selling Amazon, for selling on Amazon in the early years. So in the early years, I was very much a bricks and mortar. I had like 22 distributors around the world. I had a distributor in the U S I had, distributors in the UK, wholesalers, et cetera. So the product went on and was like looked after effectively by other people, um, on Amazon. And then it was 2014 was when I was getting divorced. And I realized that basically there wasn’t enough margin really in not enough profit for me to be selling to people who are then selling like full price, et cetera. So, that’s when I went to my first Amazon conference in the UK. And that’s where I met lots of people who are selling garlic crushers and back support braces and things.

Cara:

And they’re all making gazillions or so they said, by the way, that is a load of old rubbish all of the time. And I was like, well, if they’re selling these fairly, you know, mediocre, generic products and making millions, surely I’ve got a great product. I know it does what it does, what it says on the tin, et cetera. And so I decided to start working on Amazon myself. So I had been with vendor central, so it was a third. So I think we were on vendor central and then we had a lot of resellers. So I had 37 resellers on my bestselling product. So I had to basically sit and not sell for about six months to anybody on in third party in order to get everybody off and get them to sell out. And then I went and worked with directly with vendor central for a while.

Bradley Sutton:

That means that she was selling her products to Amazon and Amazon was selling her product to the customer.

Cara:

Yeah, exactly. So I wasn’t doing any of the kind of logistics, et cetera, but I use that opportunity to tidy up my listings, get like, I mean, I had people putting like a blue blanket picture, like randomly up for the main image and stuff. It was all sorts of because when you have third parties on it all the time, it just becomes a mess. And so I then, yeah, worked with vendor central. Then I decided actually seller central was better for me and I preferred it more control. And I had a few issues where things had gone wrong with vendor and I was like, I think I can take it back. So I took it back and started selling myself 20, I think that was like 2015. And then I went into the U S I think 2016 Australia and Canada and then Australia. When Australia launched, I got approached by Amazon Australia to go over and launch there.

Cara:

So I still sell there. I actually unlawed, I basically pulled out of Amazon US a couple of years ago. So it was doing really, really well. I had one product that was a cover for pack and plays, which at the time was again a world first. And then I just got completely and utterly slaughtered by Chinese copies, which are completely unsafe in comparison to my product. Safety is a big thing for me and my brand.

Bradley Sutton:

In the US market?

Cara:

It’s in the U S well, and it’s still, they try everywhere, obviously, but it was literally like a feeding frenzy. So it was like piranhas in there because they knew that like, if I had a pattern, it was going to be expiring like after 10 years or whatever. So I think it’s really important. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been selling. Like actually going into the numbers is so vital. Like being able to actually really, really like analyze whether or not it, because as I’ve always said, turnover is vanity and profit is sanity. And in this case, you know that I had the turnover, yes, in the US, but the profit was like absolutely tanking. So I pulled out of it completely and I’m only now going back in again.

Cara:

And I’m going in with less products, for example, because actually, you know, I have huge awareness and, and actually what the other thing I would also say that the benefit of having done this and Canada, I’ve shut down full time because Canada again was just like a bit of a blood bath and I was like, nah, I’m staying out of it. But actually then what I did, it obviously enabled me to focus on my own home territory. And then that bit, that part of the business has grown every year. We grow like eight, 10% like, because you’ve got the time, the effort, the energy. So I would say also, you know, top piece of advice for people who are selling is, you know, it’s very easy to get distracted by other markets and actually, you know, sometimes being focused on other markets, especially if they’re not actually profitable, not know whether or not you can get the turnover, whether or not you can get the profitability. It is really useful to be able to actually like focus on where your base is because you’re always going to be stronger in your home country because you’ve got that local ability that you don’t have in other countries and less costs as well because, you know, you’re not shipping products and dealing with different countries, tax systems and all the other various things.

Bradley Sutton:

Which year would you say was your best year across all platforms on and offline and what kind of gross numbers did you do? Not necessarily your most profitable year, which is more important, but just thinking about the gross for now.

Cara:

Well, I think I’ve like, I mean, I’m only, I’m only considered quite, I consider myself quite a small seller. I think I did like nearly 3 million pounds. So and now I do under, I think around two. So the, you know, the US marketplace kind of knocks, but having said that, when you look at the profitability, I’m way more profitable now. And so therefore, and also that’s not that, that was one big year. And in fact, that was the year, probably the last year I was in the US.

Cara:

And then I pulled the US out and my numbers dropped like literally hugely, but actually the profitability of the business went up hugely as well. So I had a kind of a painful year where I was like hacking stuff out, knew I was going to be like not profitable, as profitable as I liked. But weirdly, I always sort of, I mean, I’m really hot on my numbers and every now and then I sort of think, Oh my God, why am I doing this? No, you know, have one of those moments. And I think, all right, so I’m going to shut the brand down. I’ve had enough.

Cara:

And then actually when I look at the numbers, like I’m like, Oh, actually I haven’t done too badly, you know? And, and plus also it depends on what you get out of doing the business. So I’m not planning on selling like anytime soon. I’ve probably got another, at least another five years of like doing what I do at the moment. And actually it’s interesting. I mean, I’ve been doing this now for 15 years and there’s still opportunities to grow and do different things.

Cara:

And the great thing about running the business the way I do is that like my daughter’s in the middle of doing her for the Americans out there, the equivalent of her SATs and for English levels. And so for the last, and she was doing her GCSEs year before that. So I’ve had the last sort of three or four years where, you know, my daughter’s needed me to be around a lot more and be more focused on her. And actually the business just pootled along doing very nicely. Thank you. Pays me the money I need. I get paid more than I would do for a corporate job. I don’t have to work for the man. I work for me. My boss is a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes, but you know, she’s okay. She lets me go off where I like. And that’s the thing I love about it. And I think it’s really interesting. So, uh, sadly I had a friend of mine pass away very recently. And one of these, one of the things I think it really makes you do is refocus what what’s important in your life. And it’s really interesting. So I’m on a lot of chat groups like on WhatsApp and stuff. And over the Christmas break, I’ve seen so many people like, Oh, I’ve just been like looking and it’s fricking Christmas day.

Cara:

You should be with your kids, right? Because let me just tell you, your children will remember more the fact that you weren’t around on Christmas day, more than the money that you’re going to make them like by, you know, what, you know, it’s just, life is really very short, you know? And I just think, you know, my way of running my business, not for everyone. I totally understand that. But you know, I get what I want out of it. I do what I want. I travel where I want. I get to meet great people, you know, like Bradley and I’ve known each other. It must be like the whole time you’ve been at Helium 10, isn’t it. It’s about eight years.

Cara:

And you know, you get to meet really great people. I pay my daughter through the business because she does work for me. I pay my partner cause he works for me through the business. I rack up my pension, which I don’t think it’s called a pension in the US it’s called a, is it 415 or-

Bradley Sutton:

401k?

Cara:

There you go. Yeah. So that’s like what you retire on. Yeah. Okay. So I’ve racked that up like massively. So, although again, if you actually took me out of my business, it would be a hugely profitable business, but I’m in there taking money out while I’m in it, not just focusing my attention on exiting, which I see a lot of people like running their businesses on such a tight leash and on such a tight like margin that they aren’t able to enjoy it. Whereas I say, enjoy it, then pull yourself out of it.mIf you want to sell and you know, and go from there.

Bradley Sutton:

Other than your family here, who do you employ and what do they do?

Cara:

I don’t actually employ anyone other than them except for I have freelancers. So I have a one VA in the Philippines. So she does a lot of the day-to-day admin does a lot of the checking in on things, et cetera. I have two people who work on customer service and one of them works on customer service and social media. Then I have someone who’s not full-time. She’s like sort of halftime on social media because social media and marketing is a huge part of the business. And then I have someone that I’ve outsourced like my Facebook too. I have someone who looks after my website, my SEO, my AO.

Cara:

I have accountants. I have a logistics company. So I don’t actually, I’ve never been one of these people who wants to seem as if I’m bigger than I am, to be honest. In fact, what makes me laugh a lot of the time is that people contact us and they’re quite surprised to be speaking to the owner of the business because they’re like, Oh, hang on a minute. You know, I thought you were really big business. And it’s like, Nope, still run out of my home. So I have a really lovely team actually. And I’ve had, you know, lots of people work for me for quite long periods of time. You know, on and off and come back to me and then gone away and done something new and then come back or whatever. And I don’t believe it.nI don’t need a big warehouse to make me feel successful. I don’t, I’d rather like have a third party because it means I don’t have to worry about, I don’t want to be worrying about wages and like, you know, all of the people management stuff. I’d rather someone else handled that. And again, that’s my choice, my lifestyle. So yeah, maybe I pay slightly more than other people. Maybe I don’t, I don’t know.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Okay. Well, this is, you know, your model here is I think what entrepreneurs strive to be able to do. Like if you made such a big operation that now you’re almost, you are the man, you know, now it’s the same thing of what you’re trying to escape. So the fact that you were able to build this business up and still kind of like keep it in the family is like, that’s the dream of a lot of brands out there. Now, as we mentioned before, there was no tools around in 2014, 2015, as competition grew and now you have to start doing things like you, maybe tracking keywords and looking at.

Cara:

Oh yeah. Tracking competitors. Yeah. So I mean, I still get every day or I don’t know how often it is either once a week or once a day I get competitor analysis of like what they’re doing, et cetera. I think what it is as well is, like I said when I shut the US down, you know, my, there was a much bigger pile of competitors cause they were, I was just being like literally like attacked. And now it seems to have calmed down because actually what realistically it’s very hard to produce a product like mine. I mean they cannot produce a product like mine. No product that is a copy is as good quality as mine. Just simply, they can only ever attack me on price. That’s it. They can’t attack me on safety. They can’t attack me on quality. And so now it’s actually calmed down a lot and I think now I’m going to go, I’m going back in again and it’s like probably like three, four years of like not working properly in the US. And you know, if you have a brand, you know, with values and an actual proper USP, you know, unique selling point, something to put makes you different. Then you can go in and start again at any given moment in time.

Cara:

So, you know, my sales figures this year have been really good. I’ve been testing the water baby steps this year and next year, I can go in a bit harder if I want to, but you know, it’s just always useful to understand. Like this, the other thing, I think a lot of people do, they’re like, Oh, I’ve got to go big or go home. It’s like, no, like I’ve been flying stuff in, like even with the tariffs, I’ve been flying things in because I’d rather limit like my exposure in case it all goes wrong, you know? And so like, I’ve spent the last sort of six to eight months testing, seeing how, which products are selling. And actually it’s interesting because going back in now, different products are selling better than other products.

Cara:

So like the old one used to be the market leader. Now another one’s really kind of come forward, which is fascinating and not something I could necessarily predicted. So yeah,  I think it’s always exciting times. And like this year I’m actually launching a couple of new products. One of which is not a Snoozeshade as such. It’s an accessory, but it’s an accessory. I know that people who buy Snoozeshade would buy. And therefore it opens because one of my biggest challenges and one of the reasons why I have the same issue every time I always say to people, well, if they don’t know about Snoozeshade, how do they find it because my biggest keyword is my brand name and also the things that it does. So if they don’t know about it, they’re not looking for it.

Cara:

So how do I get to those people? So my next path is well to, but to give them the accessories. I know the type of person who buys my product would be buying and then that exposes them to the brand and therefore hopefully they will then start moving over and buying the other products. So it’s an interesting, it’s a kind of like, you know, chicken, egg, egg and chicken, a lot of the time. So, and then I’m also doing a product for special needs market which is really exciting. I’m very, very excited about that because I’ve been asked to do it for quite a long time and I’ve just not had the focus.

Cara:

And because I’m not allowed to travel because of Holly’s exams, I will be at home a bit more so I can get my, um, my cutting scissors out and start doing some, yeah, some prototypes, which will be cool.

Bradley Sutton:

So, you know, I know you’ve dominated like your brand term and you’re definitely, you know, very well known here in the UK. I’m going to ask you in a little bit. I heard even members of the Royal family have used your product.

Cara:

Yeah. Quite a few of them actually. And some ex girlfriends of Royal family have as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh my goodness.

Cara:

I’ve had some really cool people use it actually.

[Bradley Sutton:]

The secret service or what do you call it? The MI6 or something.

Cara:

They just buy on the website and then I’m nosy because I see an unusual looking name and then I Google them and I’m like, Oh wow.

Bradley Sutton:

Nice. But anyways, like you said, you know, people, people will find your brand because they heard about it somewhere. They saw it on social media or something, but then you also, you know, you can’t just live off of branded search. You’re trying to get new customers. And so how does Helium 10 come in when you’re talking about launching new products, when you’re talking about, you know, expanding your existing products, how does that help?

Cara:

Well, so obviously I sort of know the numbers of my own brand, as you say, and some of the sort of the keywords that I know I hit for. But then, you know, as in finding other products, it’s a lot of the time, it’s like looking at what else people buy. You know, I’ve got an understanding. And also just sometimes it’s like just knowing the volume of a keyword means I can go, that would be quite a good one. That if I went in and got 10% of that, you know, if I got, yeah, I’ve never been a big percentage person. I’ve always started off.

Cara:

So like when I very first started there were like 750,000 babies born in the UK and I was like, well, if I hit 1%, you know, and actually now I do well more than that, but like it’s interesting. Oh wait, I do way more than that, darling. Yeah. Way more than 1%. But yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things where you have to really understand. And I really like, you know, to being able to nose around and see what other people are doing, what other products are doing well. And also the keywords often, it’s difficult. If you look at it, just like on Amazon, it can just be a bit of a mishmash. Whereas with Helium, you can organize it better and you can put it into like groups and track what things are doing and where they, where they’re going, where they’ve been, that sort of thing.

Cara:

And as I said, it’s also interesting because then I can actually go into what are the other keywords people are buying my products looking at, because that can be completely unrelated. And so therefore you’ll be like, Oh, hang on a minute. They’re like been searching for that. But then, so if they’ve been searching for that, then maybe I should be doing something that appeals to that word, which has got nothing to do with, you know. So I think, you know, for me, Helium 10 has always been like a, it’s a big time saver because I can pull things together. And actually now with AI as well, I mean, that’s what really helps as well because before, I mean, I used to have pages and pages and pages of spreadsheets and like be sitting there and my brain be like, ah, you know, sorting and all the rest of it.

Cara:

Now you can just go sort this out for me and find this and find that. So I think, that really helps. And then actually on the other side of it, I think we were talking about earlier on like the whole TikTok side of things as well. So for me, marketing, social media, et cetera, has always been a very huge part of my business. In fact, to be fair, as I always said, I don’t really consider myself to be an Amazon seller. I’m just a brand.

Cara:

And Amazon happens to be my largest sales channel. But you know, TikTok is really interesting and not necessarily just purely for sales, but for awareness again. So going back to the kind of principles of old fashioned marketing, this is what’s really interesting generally with the whole kind of like AI scenario that we’re all dealing with. One of the reasons people are freaking out is because it’s taken away all the hacks. It’s taken away all the, well, if I go for this keyword, then I’m going to always get here. Whereas AI does, what kind of old fashioned marketing does, which is it looks at like relevance and whether or not you’re actually relevant for that word and whether or not you’re being picked up naturally for that.

Cara:

So that’s why things like I’ve had a blog since I started my website in 2010. So I have got literally like huge amounts of like material. And so, you know, but then it’s now also taking that material, tweaking it and making sure it’s relevant to the keywords. So, you know, all of these things, we’re kind of coming back to the fact that as an Amazon seller, you shouldn’t just be thinking about Amazon. You should be thinking outside the box. You should be thinking about how are people going to find you and you want them to be looking for you actively. So start doing things. And TikTok is quite a good opportunity to do that. Start doing things that are just not Amazon focused all the time. And that’s why I think we talked about TikTok last year in Prague, didn’t we? And like what Helium 10 was going to do. And it all sounds like really exciting.

Bradley Sutton:

So I think being an international seller is another way you use Helium 10 because like, for example, let’s say I had, uh, what we would call a diaper company in the US and I went to the UK or Australia and I’ll be like, yes, I’d be like, Oh, okay. Let me just copy my listing.

Cara:

Or a travel cot, a port-a-cot or a pack-and-play.

Bradley Sutton:

What’s a pack-and-play?

Cara:

A pack-and-play. Well, that’s American. You should know that. Pack-and-play is a baby, like a play yard.

Bradley Sutton:

I haven’t had babies in 25 years.

Cara:

Exactly. So play yard is another word. So play yard, pack-and-play. So in Australia they’re called port-a-cots. In America they’re called pack-and-play and play yards. And in the UK we call them travel cots. And so you do have to actually change your, because that’s the point. If you’re going to sit there and look for the wrong keyword on Helium 10, in the wrong market, then you’re going to make misinformed decisions. So it is really interesting. I do see that. And I see that a lot, if I’m honest, from the U S and well, I see it both ways actually. I see UK and U S companies.

Cara:

We speak English, but we do speak a different language and they don’t think about it. So they’re like, I’m going to launch this product. It’s so successful in like either the UK or the U S it’s like, yeah. But I mean, I helped a friend a while ago. She had, it was a baby food preparation device or whatever. And the first thing I do is go and look on Amazon, the way you want to sell and find the competitors and start understanding what words they’re using.

Cara:

Then go and look that up on Helium 10 and see what the traction is, et cetera. Rather than like looking at your own keywords in the UK because they, they won’t necessarily apply.

Bradley Sutton:

And we’re talking English here, but imagine if she was going to launch Snoozeshade in Japan or something, a completely different language. Obviously you’re not going to have an English listening. So you need to be able to look up the keywords. You say you get like daily emails from Helium 10. What are you looking at there?

Cara:

Well, that’s the competitor, which is, which has actually been really interesting because it’s just seeing the number drop. Like since there was the, as I said, it was like shark infested waters. And like I would literally out there be like, you know, 40, 50 competitors. And now it’s gone down. It’s like maybe 12 or 13 or something like that, which is very manageable. And I’m always looking at like how many reviews they’ve got versus how many I’ve got and all that sort of thing. I mean, reviews definitely have plummeted off the surface of the earth. I mean, you know, like when I think about the good old days of, you know, the how many reviews you could get, because actually also customers wrote them and I never write reviews on Amazon.

Cara:

So, I mean, I just think, well, you know, it doesn’t matter how much I love a product. I mean, you know, it, you know, it’s like, I’m just really lazy and I don’t write reviews and I think everyone else is like that too. So that it’s, it’s really fascinating because obviously having been around quite a long time, like having seen all the fads and the changes and the, you know, oh, there’s this, the review thing.

Cara:

And then there’s, you know, another, like there’s a hack for this and a hack for that. The, the biggest piece of advice I always give everyone who ever asked me about like, oh, I’m thinking of starting a business or whatever. I’m always like, you’ve got to have a decent product and it’s got to have something that is not just exactly the same. It’s got to be your product. Can’t just be someone else’s. So like, I mean, for example, I’m doing a product launching this year and I’ve already had a mold made to make it look slightly different.

Cara:

I’m packaging it differently. You know, I’m making it harder to copy. But also it has a unique look to it. So cause you know, because customers aren’t stupid. Like they know that if you bought a generic, whatever it is. That it’s the same generic product. And just because one’s got a hundred reviews and one’s got three reviews because they’re usually using the same pictures from the factory, you can tell, you know, and I think that’s the thing.

Cara:

I think customers, there are obviously a lot of stupid customers out there as well who don’t realize we’re not stupid, but uninformed and who obviously don’t make the connection to the fact there’s like 30 photos that are all exactly the same and then go for the one with the best reviews that’s got the more expensive product. I’m like, it’s exactly the same product as the cheapest one. And I explain that to people sometimes now cause they’re like, Oh, I didn’t realize.

Cara:

I’m like, well, yeah, like seriously people, you know? But it is, you know, when you know, you know, um, but I think it is so important to ensure that you have something that makes your products different in some way. And that can also be the behind the scenes service, which we’re absolutely like we rock on customer service. Like, you know, I’m obsessed with delivering amazing customer service. So that that’s a good obsession to have. I find.

Bradley Sutton:

Absolutely. How has social media played a role? Like, like influencers, we talked about Royal family like did you see a bump now when a member of the Royal family was using your product or people just organically post or do you pay people to post or how do you leverage social media to help you?

Cara:

No. So the Royal family only found out about because I’d run out worldwide of a particular product. And so they got in touch. And then the other one I found out about because they ordered the product and I’ve seen a few of them off the website. I mean, I found out. So also, because this is the other thing, if you ever buy from me and got an unusual name, I will stalk you. Because I remember there was one lady and she had an unusual name and it was actually, it was a famous name, an artistic famous name. And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And she’d bought from my US website. This is many, many, many years ago, probably like 2013. And it turned out after I stalked her and you couldn’t find anything on her. I had to go to like some Argentinian like newspapers.

Cara:

And it turned out she was the partner of Matt Groening, who invented the Simpsons. And I was like, Oh wow. And you know, they just had a baby. So she’d obviously bought it for their baby. And, you know, so, but I mean, we also get a lot of influencers who approach us. Now it’s interesting because sometimes.

Bradley Sutton:

Famous people, when you buy from her website, use a fake name. Otherwise she will find you. Like Liam Neeson.

Cara:

I will hunt you down. It’s just, I’m so nosy, I think. And I love names. So I think that’s why it’s like, if they’ve got an unusual name, I’m like, Oh, that’s an unusual name. I wonder where that’s from. You know, I don’t do it all the time. I haven’t got time, but just occasionally, and I’ve hit gold a couple of times. So yeah, we mainly get approached or we get a lot of approaches. But then also we have an active influencer program where we go out and we find people, but we’re not like everybody else. Who’s like, hi there, your feed’s really great. And I’d really like to send you some product.

Cara:

You know, we tend to actually engage with them. We actually get to know them. You know, I really, the people that we work the best with are the people who, you know, we build a relationship with. So for example, they might come to us and they’ve got a toddler and then they’re going to have, and then they’ll have a stroller product for their toddler. Then they’ll want the pack and play travel cot, quarter cot product because they’re going on holiday and they want to take that. Then they might have another baby.

Cara:

Then they want the twin product because they’ve got a double stroller. And then they might have another baby and they want the one for the stroller bassinet or the carry cot. So we prefer, and I prefer to work with people like that who like spontaneously and genuinely like promote and use the products. They promote them not because we’re asking them to, but because they love it and it’s genuinely making their life easier, which is my slogan. My tagline is making life easier for you. The other thing is we don’t pay either.

Cara:

So we only ever do gifted because I just, however anyone ever tries to say otherwise, an ad is an ad, right? And it’s never going to be as genuine as when someone genuinely loves the product. Now they don’t necessarily have to have bought the product. I mean, I particularly like it. I’ve had people influenced in the past who haven’t really understood the product, think it’s dangerous cause it’s a dark color and it’s sun and all the rest of it. And I’ve had people who’ve literally started off slating the products.

Cara:

And then I’ve said, well, why don’t you try one? And then they’ve become the biggest converts, you know, and then they’re the ones who are going around like telling other people off and know that, you know, they’re la la. And, and that’s what you want really. I think the great thing is, is that we generally tend to create like emotional relationships with people. And we, you know, I’ve been working, some people I’ve been working with them on and off for eight, nine years to maybe 10. And we kind of, I say, consider them friends, you know, like they’re great.

Cara:

And other people, you know, pop in and out very short term and that’s fine as well. But you know, we’re not like, we’re not interested in just throwing product and seeing where it sticks. That’s not, not the thing. And I do think that’s where sometimes a lot of particularly Amazon sellers who maybe are not quite as sort of brand slash marketing aware, get unstuck and they just think that throwing as much product out there as you can, they’re going to get great results. And actually, if I’m honest, that’s why I have the people on board that I have because of the fact that they are very good at managing and looking after in a caring way, all the people that we will, we work with.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Now, you know, you didn’t know, I was going to ask you this specifically. So, and I know you don’t have a necessarily computer like mind but what if, you know, like over the years you’ve had Helium 10 for a long, and, and it’s not like, Oh, here, this exact thing brought me this exact sale. But you know, you can estimate, Hey, I found a couple of keywords that gets the sales. So like, if you were to estimate how, you know, in seven years, six years, you’ve been using Helium 10, how much money you have made from things that you would not have had if you didn’t have Helium 10 or the labor hours, your own, your family’s or your VA’s of things like tracking keywords and things like that, that, you know, would take hours and hours. If you just put a random number to it, like how much do you think, uh, you know, Helium 10 has either saved or made you over the years?

Cara:

Well, I think I can’t do the, how much it’s made. Cause that is, that’s almost impossible. What I would say is I’ve definitely like, you know, it’s interesting cause I mean, I’ve done my own listings for a very long time. I’ve now got somebody else doing it for me and helping, but you know, I have spent numerous hours researching like the keywords and I think that’s an element where you can get given the keywords, but you need to know how to use them. And it’s, and I’ve never been a keyword stuffer. So whilst I like to ensure I have all the relevant keywords in there at the same time, I wouldn’t go mad and like put every single keyword that I think, like, I want it to read like English, you know, if you know what I mean. But certainly in terms of time, it has saved me huge amounts of time because, you know, trying to actually understand which keywords are probably worth and it’s allowed me to test as well, which is good because, you know, you need to know what the keywords could be and which ones you’re kind of going after and which ones you’re not.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, it’s been great catching up with you and learning more about your business and, and Snoozeshade guys, look them up a website, whether you’re US, UK, other countries, look them up.

Cara:

If you have a baby on the way not to three, get in touch. If you’re an influencer, even more, get in touch.

Bradley Sutton:

There we go.

Cara:

But keep going.

Bradley Sutton:

But if you’re famous, use a different name.

Cara:

If you’re famous then use a different name because I was, I will stalk and hunt you.

Bradley Sutton:

If you’re going to burn her and not promote the product after getting, yeah, exactly.

Cara:

Then consider yourself dead to me.

Bradley Sutton:

So I’ll blow you up on a podcast as well. But anyways, Cara, thank you so much for inviting me to your home. I had some nice croissants here.

Cara:

Pain au chocolat, only the best.

Bradley Sutton:

Thank you very much. And wish you all the best.

Cara:

And wish you always a pleasure.

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