Our guest on the 23rd of November, 2020, on the sellerboard show was Kamal Singh from amzonestep. Kamal has been selling on amazon since 2015 (retail and online arbitrage, wholesale).
We talked about:
- Why you need to start selling on Amazon Canada
- How to create converting images
- Mistakes to avoid with listing pictures
- How much do quality pictures cost for Amazon
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKBSsg7SSV4
0:07
What’s up Welcome to the sellerboard show. My name is Vladi and my Today’s guest is Kamal from AMZ one step we’re going to talk about product images and photography. And you know how to make your images stand out. To get more buyers, click on your product. It’s an important topic for private label sellers. So if you are one, then make sure you watch this episode till the end. And before we start, don’t forget to press the like button to subscribe to our channel. And if you don’t know what sellerboard is, check out our homepage at sellerboard com, sellerboard is our profit analytics tool for Amazon sellers with a lot of bonus tools in the package like a PPC optimization module, for example, or money back model, which finds FBA errors and helps you get reimbursed by Amazon for cases where Amazon damaged or lost your product. And a lot more and all that is starting from $15 a month we have more than 4000 customers. So make sure to check out our software at sellerboard com. And now let’s start the show. Kamal thanks for joining us.
1:28
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
1:31
So yeah, Come on, tell us about yourself.
1:35
Okay, so yes. So I will start with my Amazon journey. So I started selling on Amazon in 2015. I started with you know, retail arbitrage did some online arbitrage. Then right after some time, you know, a few months, I jumped into the wholesale. That went pretty well. Because in wholesale, you know, I prop product I was selling it didn’t have that much margin. So I ended up doing the private label. So the private label Did you know after some failed products, you know, I found a couple of winners. So that went really did really great. Then I was also doing, you know, local meetups and you know, getting Amazon sellers together. I was organizing that. And then I met a lady and she was interested in buying my brand because I was more focused on AMZ one step at a time. So yeah, she did offer me a good price for that brand. And I’m like, Yeah, sure. Here it is. So, so that product is still selling and that brand is still you know, going pretty well on Amazon, Canada and Amazon USA. So yes. So since then, you know, I’ve been working on my company, AMZ one step and yeah, so the Amazon. Yeah. So it has been great so far.
2:45
So what when was it? Like, when
2:46
did you sell? That was the beginning of 2018. When it sold? It was on brand?
2:52
Okay, and AMZone step Tell us about your company like what are you doing?
2:57
Okay, so what we mainly do we do product photography and create listing images for Amazon sellers, we do listing optimization, a plus content, and manage PPC as well. So these are some of our core services that you know, that we offer.
3:12
Okay, very cool. So, um, I have a couple of questions about your seller career. So you said it started with retail arbitrage and you move to wholesale and into private label. So what’s the best model to start with? And maybe, maybe, also, you know, we can say, what’s the best model to start now? Because maybe there are some differences between no?
3:40
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So I would say, even before or now, retail arbitrage would be the best option to start with. The reason why I’m saying this, because retail arbitrage gives you all the basics that you need to you know, be successful on Amazon, you understand how the labeling works, you understand how shipping works, and you understand how to, you know, find products with bestseller ranks, you understand how numbers work, and how is your profit margins? What’s the shipping fees looks like? What’s the FBA fees looks like? You know, all those basics are very, very important when you go and launch a private label product. Because if you make investment in private label product, and it’s a lot of money and any tiny mistake that you made, it can cost a lot of money. So want to test things with retail arbitrage. You understand everything you understand, you know, the seller central really well. buyer-seller communication is a lot. You know, you understand, you know how to create a shipping plan, some of the challenges that you might face during facing, you know, during creating the shipping plans or, yeah, there’s hundreds of things that you learn it’s a learning University when you’re doing a private label. Retail arbitrage sorry. Yeah. So I think that the best option to start with,
4:55
okay, so tell us most of our listeners alike spread worldwide Do you have to be in US and Canada or in whatever country Amazon sells in, or Amazon is active to do retail arbitrage,
5:11
it is a lot easier when you’re doing retail arbitrage within your own country because Canada and you didn’t share the border and the shipping is not too expensive. So I’m in Canada service shipping to Canada and us both. So it’s ideal to do the retail arbitrage in the country you’re living in. But the other option is you can do online arbitrage as well. So that way, you can get one prep center to you know, have your product shipped to Amazon warehouse and you can still do the arbitrage online. So that does not have any boundaries, you can be anywhere in the world and still do the online arbitrage. So the only thing you have to make sure when you’re doing the online arbitrage make sure the product is exactly what you’re ordering from your website. So this is what, Yeah, so
6:00
what what do you think, like, does it work in 2020? I mean, let’s start with retail arbitrage. Maybe or like other money margins too thin, though.
6:09
Okay. Yeah, I, as I mentioned, you know, I, in 2016, you know, I jumped into wholesale, so it’s been four years since I did the retail arbitrage. It’s obviously much more competitive, and Amazon have a lot of restrictions, a lot of categories, they are not available for the new sellers. Many brands have disrupted themselves. So it’s a lot competitive. It’s it still works, but it’s extra hard work. Now, now you have to spend maybe two extra hours in you know, Walmart or any other stores, but it still works. But you know, obviously, it’s a little bit harder. Once you know how everything works. You know, if you’re in your city, what what was happening with me, I knew exactly where the profitable products were, I knew you know what brands I’m not going to sell, and which I’ll I can find some more products. Right. So which store has most of the sale going on? So once you have the experience, you know, things do get easier. But yeah, so it’s not as easy as before.
7:12
So how did you like do it? I know that retail arbitrage is about buying like stuff at Walmart and basically selling it on Amazon, ship it to FBA. But like how does it look like as you go into the store and just scan everything with your Amazon app? Or what’s the process?
7:29
that is pretty much it? Yeah. Did you scan the item? And see the first thing you see, are you even allowed to sell the product? Right? The second thing, if there’s a profit margin, if there is a profit margin, the next thing you see how many sellers are selling that same product? Right? So there’s like step by step criteria that you follow. If you miss one of that, that means it’s gonna be there’s gonna be problem. And you also look at, you know, when you’re, when I was doing retail arbitrage, the first thing I was looking at, what’s the bestseller rank, right? If the rent looks good, that means you know, it’s gonna, the inventor is gonna move faster. And if I’m allowed to sell that, if there’s not a lot of time, you know, the seller selling the same listing? If not, you should go for it. And you can there are, you know, tools, you know, that you can use to see how many units it’s selling per month. And that gives you an idea how many, you know, how many units you should be buying, right? So you can always look at how many FBA sellers are there on that listing and how many non-FBA sellers are there. So you can pretty much ignore the non-FBA sellers because they’re not going to get the buy box. Most of the time. DFP is, you know, the seller’s prime logo, they are the ones who are going to get the buy box. So, so only thing you need to count is, you know, the prime seller selling that product. And yeah, so. And sometimes, you know, Amazon does not like to share the buy box on some of the products. But yeah, so it’s a little bit of risk. You know, it’s your call if you want to compete with Amazon or not, sometimes they’re good. Sometimes they’re not so good.
9:04
Okay, and do you need like a special app? Or is it the Amazon seller app that you need on your phone?
9:11
amazon seller app, that’s what I used to use. But I’m also familiar with other apps that people are you know, people used to use because that gives everything to one scan with seller app you have to do you know, so many clicks, okay, check profits here. Check eligibility here. Check sellers, so you have to do so many clicks. But there are some apps can’t remember the name but they can tell you exactly if you should go for this product or not.
9:39
Okay, so why did you go to wholesale?
9:43
Okay, wholesale. I did not know that I was doing wholesale. So what I was doing. So before selling on Amazon, I had an electronics business, I was selling streaming media boxes, right. So that was my sidekick at the moment. And one day I realized why not I sell the product. I’m selling to the consumer right now, I noticed sell on Amazon how Amazon works now. So I started selling that and was doing really good. And later when, you know, when I started YouTube with watching beauty videos and stuff like that, then I realized, oh, what I’m doing is wholesale.
10:17
So okay,
10:18
this is how, you know, I didn’t know that I’m doing wholesale but this is how I got started with wholesale. It’s not I didn’t really look for a distributor or manufacturer. It was, you know, the products were with me all the time, you know, because that was my other business. So I started selling that.
10:36
Did you have Did you have, like an offline store brick and mortar store where you’re selling them?
10:41
It was working from home? So I used to go out and install those boxes for you know, the screaming lungs, okay? Everything I’m in a garage in my garage?
10:52
Well, okay, got it. And like, why did you? Okay, that makes totally makes sense to me. But why did you switch to private label? Okay, so
11:01
the private label, because I was working day job at the time, so I had to go out and do the shopping at the same time, you know, the same day, on weekends, what I had to do is to pack them, label them and drop it off at this, you know, UPS was taking my whole entire seven days. So I was hearing a lot about private label at the time, I’m like, okay, no, Okay, I’m gonna try that as well. So that’s when you know, when I did that, I’m gonna go that’s a lot easier than you know, you don’t have to go out you don’t have to, you know, the problem with retail arbitrage was my bedroom, my garage, everything was full of stuff that really brought variously. Right. So slowly, I wanted to move, you know, move out of there. At the same time, the scalability issue, right, so you go to source more, if you want to sell more, right, so, so there’s only few sale going on, there’s only few products that you can find from the local, unless you drive, you know, 50 kilometers to other town. But yeah, so I didn’t want to do that. So that was one of the main reasons I wanted to do the private label.
12:14
You know, I was a seller myself, actually, my story is quite similar. I also sold my my business. And I started with private label, and then I sold the private label business. And I know what you mean, like, but I had this problem with private label. So my whole home was full of boxes. And I was selling in Germany. And I didn’t know that you can kind of ship products from China to Amazon. And I didn’t know that. What is a prep center, right. So well, like, at a certain point, I had bring in more space in the, in the apartment, like the toilet was full with boxes and the sleeping room and everything. And my wife said like, many I think you need to get a warehouse is something that was like, probably the right time. But they I know what you’re talking about. But how did you like? How did you manage this, you sent the boxes from China to Amazon directly or like a prep center?
13:15
Okay, so a little bit different route than the normal people. And because I was in Canada, and I was trying to sell in Canada and the USA bought, right. Also, if, if the supplier ships, no, to both two countries, it was a little bit of expensive. So what I decided to do, I, at the very first time, what I would do, let’s say I’m ordering thousand units, it would come to my house first, I would inspect them myself, and then send 200 to Canada 200 per se and see where it’s selling the most. Oh, you know, some amazon.com is competitive, you know, sometimes you’re not able to rank where you’re, it’s, you know, your product just doesn’t pick up. In Canada, it’s been surprisingly, surprisingly, it’s been much more successful for me because there’s a lot less competition. So I would choose, you know, I would send 200 both countries and see where it’s selling the most and then I would sell send the rest of the 600 units to that country. Or you know, I could make calculation there. So that was kind of my you know, the rule of thumb China, but once it’s once I know that it’s doing good in Canada then I would ship directly from China to the Amazon FBA I know displayers go down spectrum myself and stuff like that. So that’s what that’s how
14:38
so Canada I find interesting because I didn’t speak to too many people who sold in Canada. What’s your, like, advice? would you advise somebody who’s selling in the US to go to Canada?
14:52
100% Yeah, so the volume is a lot less but at the same time, there’s no not a lot of competition. So it’s a good time to you know, Get established on these mark, you know, one Canadian market. So there’s a lot of products, which does not have, you know, too much competition. So, ranking is easier, there’s not a lot of reviews. Canadians are, you know, usually very nice people, less returns. So yeah, I would say, you know, it’s a no brainer not to use Canada, if you’re selling in the, you know, USA or if you’re in the US shipping, you know, we can do a round, DHL round or in of FedEx Ground. So shipping times are a lot lesser, so it’s just like us.
15:34
Okay. And, like, What’s your feeling comparing to the US is like, one 10th of the US if you have a, of course, depends on your ranking, but like, same product or similar product or similar, similar ranking? What would be the volume?
15:50
I think one 10th is a is very close to accurate estimation. Okay? If you’re, if you’re looking at this similar bestseller range, one 10th is a good, good estimate. But, but the chances of getting, you know,
16:08
a better and BSR,
16:11
better BSR are a lot higher. When I was selling in Canada, my even some of my friends I know, their bestseller rank is in two digits, right? I know a lot sellers was the bestseller rank is in three digits, because of the market size, right? In the USA 10. If you if your bestseller rank is 10,000 you’re like, oh, wow, it’s doing good, right? Same time, you know, when your bestseller goes in, you know, 4000 or sorry, four, four digit range, you know, you started worrying about, oh, why am I not getting sales? Right? Okay.
16:43
I think like my impression about Germany is similar. It’s like, I would, I would guess also probably one 10th of the US in all that you say about reviews and everything. This is kind of, I think Melis in Germany as well. And Germans are also very nice people. But they’re very critical with respect to products. So I’m very pragmatic, you know, so, I don’t know, I guess, I guess you would get less stars in Germany than in Canada, on average for the same product. Okay, so, yeah, eventually sold your product. Why did you decide to like to go to this service or third service company not basically started another product?
17:34
Yeah, so the biggest challenge that I was having is the cash flow challenge. Because, you know, I had two to three projects going on at the same time. And I also had been restock them plus launch a new, you know, new product, right? So this kind of heavy cash flow thing. So what I decided to do, okay, now, since in as I mentioned that I was organizing meetups as well. So a lot of sellers were asking me, Hey, where do you get the images? And where you Where do you get the copy? Done? You know, who’s your, you know, shipping freight forwarder. So people were asking me these kind of questions, and they needed help. And so that’s when I decided, you know, what, why not give it a shot to an agency, which helps with everything. So it started doing well, there was not a lot of investment needed. I had context, I had team, you know, who can help people. So they started, you know, picking up well. So once I reached that point that this agency was making more than the Amazon, you know, selling so I, I decided that my focus is, you know, I’m gonna focus on this urgency for now, because Amazon selling is a skill and you can always come back to it anytime. Once you know how it works, you can you know, you can do it, do it again. So that was the, you know, ideology behind it. So, and luckily, I got the offer at the same time, so, yeah.
18:55
Okay, sounds good. So let’s talk about the images. You said, like you’re doing pictures, what, how can I? Or what, how does it work? Do you get the product from for a customer and then you organize the pictures or what’s the process?
19:12
So for the listing images, you know, there’s no unanswered questions that sellers, sellers, you know, don’t have yet Firstly, the sellers they need to, they need to know what route they’re gonna go Are they gonna go with the stock images or they’re gonna go with the real-life tog Rafi, for both of them the product needs to be shipped to the photographer. And once you know photography, let’s say you’re using stock images, or we’re gonna take your picture and then Photoshop them to the licensed stock images. You know you can get this document just from Adobe stock.com or shutterstock.com. And you know, have it product nicely photoshopped or blended in so that it looks real, right. So the key is making it look real and making it look like a print premium product. So that is limited on the cheaper side. So that is one option. With stock photography, and the second is, you know, going with the real-life models or real-life photography, a lot of the big brands, they don’t like to go with the stock images because they don’t want to use the same images that other people are using. So so we do real-life tog Rafi, you know, we do need to hire models one or two based on you know, based on the requirements. And the same time, you know, it needs to be short in real-life environment, maybe in the studio, or maybe outside. In some kind of environment. If we don’t have that those things available, maybe you need to rent out an Airbnb, maybe you need to travel down. So it’s a lot more work when you’re doing the real-life telegraphy. So if you’re a big brand, and you have like multiple products, multiple products, it is a good idea to go with the real-life tog Rafi because your multiple products can be shot at the same time with the same model. So those models can be the face of your brand. And it doesn’t cost a lot of money. Because you’re shooting, you’re you know, you’re taking photographs of 10s or maybe 20 products at the same time. So it just reduces your cost on the stock images. If someone is brand new, someone’s just starting out, stock images would be a nice option to go with them. Because it doesn’t cost a lot of money, it’s very easy to revise, you know, you don’t if you need any changes, you can, it can be done within the same day. Or, you know, the on the other side, when you’re doing your real-life photography, let’s say you miss one-shot or something that you didn’t like, or something you forgot in the form to the photographer, now you have to re hire the models. And now you have to do the same thing over and over again. So for someone new, you know, go with the stock images, someone you know, advanced, or you know what you’re doing, you know what you want with the real-life geography. And in both cases, the product needs to be shipped to the product photographer.
22:00
Tell us give us a couple of tips, what to we need to, like pay attention with respect to the pictures to increase the conversion. So anybody wants to know, you need to have nice pictures and white background and, you know, they should look nice, and you need to have seven. But once you know all that what looks like next.
22:26
Okay, so the first thing that every seller needs to work on is the main image, you know, forget about the other image. As of now, first thing, you know, make sure your main image looks crisp, taken from a high-quality camera, and you’re not violating any Amazon’s Terms of Service because they’re cracking down on me and image a lot. And try to come up with a unique angle, and how your product can display on the search results. And cut down all the extra whitespace Make sure your product is filling as much space as possible on the main image so that it looks very sharp on the display on the search results. And people should be able to, you know, understand what exactly the product is if they’re going to buy it or not. If they’re going to buy it, you know, they’ll click on it. If they’re not interested, they won’t click on it your you know your conversion rate won’t get affected. So make sure your main images absolutely killer and do the split testing on the main image. It’s always a good idea to split test, see what’s doing really well, even on one or two percentage of difference can be huge overtime. If you know if there are some tools that you can use to split test your images. But always do that. So spend a lot of time on the main image that would be tip number one
23:42
just above questions about this one. So it says split test. What? Suppose I do it manually, like go and change my picture. What’s the KPI that I need to look at? Like is it like the click-through rate? Or? Although no, no, it was better? Yes, they’re trying to do the split test on the main image, click-through rate would be the best KPI to look at.
24:07
And you can do it with the first maybe two weeks or one month on one image. And the second month, you can do the second image. But you also have to make sure you’re comparing it with you know at the same number of impressions, right? Sometimes for let’s say, if you’re doing a split test, October right now, and you’re doing second image in November, November, your impressions will be a lot more higher because of the Cyber Monday and you know, the Black Friday and everything. So you got to compare apples to apples, let’s say for a thousand impressions, you know, thousand impressions who’s better? So this is how, you know you would go about it. So that’s how you can do it manually.
24:51
Okay, got it. All right. Sorry for dropping gold. So what’s the second tip?
24:56
Yeah, the second thing you can do for the listing images is make Make sure you are covering the unique selling point of your product, why your product is different than your competitors, or what changes you have done. The unique selling point should be it’s also called USP, which should be in your second or third image because that’s where people are going to scroll immediately right after the right after the, you know, main image. And the other things that you can do, what are some of the complaints people are doing? Read all the negative reviews? What’s the biggest concern of people? Right? And try to create an image around that, let’s say people say, Oh, it’s not that sturdy, it’s not that strong, you know, have an image, which clearly tells that your product is a durable product, it’s very strong, it won’t break something like, because that is the most common complaint. The second example, what are people loving about your, your competitors? What are these products? Talk about that? Because that is an experience? You know you got to sell them that experience? Okay, this product smells good. Right? You got to tell them that because people are reading talking about that in the reviews, same thing. questions answered? What are the top questions answered? What are people asking questions? If they are asking questions, that means your competitors are missing those key points in their listings, have an image created around the most common, you know, mostly common, ask questions, try to do this, and obviously, you know, showcase the features and benefits, which is pretty, you know, everyone’s doing their things, which not a lot of people are doing it. And that way you can stand out from, you know, from your competitors and your conversion are tend to go a lot higher.
26:43
Okay, cool. So, what do you think about 3d? Computer Graphics?
26:50
Yeah, 3d rendering is great. You know, it’s a lot of sellers. A lot of sellers are doing it. But not everyone understand that. I get a lot of sellers who talk about 3d rendering, but they don’t really know what 3d rendering is, how does that work? You know, I show them Okay, do you need an image like this? Oh, yeah, I need exactly like that. But it’s not 3d rendered. So. So the difference between 3d rendered, and the other photos 3d renders are the virtual images which are created in a computer. Right. So there are some software’s that people, people use, like 3ds, Max, or, or Maya, or modo, these are some of the software that you know, people use for 3d rendering, and how 3d rendering works. It’s only good for the products, which are nice and smooth in the structure or its texture, maybe, maybe supplement bottle or a glass bottle. It is really beautiful. When you look at those images, because they are very sharp, they’re created on the computer, there is no imperfection. But for some products, let’s say clothing, or fruits, or vegetables, or maybe some of the product, which has a complicated texture, or you know, or the shape of the product, 3d rendering might not be the best option for centers to do because the 3d rendering is directly involved, let’s say for rendering a coffee mug versus renting a computer, the computer work is a lot more expensive, or a lot of extra work. So it’s better to do the photographs only. So this is the main difference between the two 3d rendering. So Amazon does not allow any, you know, it’s against Amazon’s Terms of Service because Amazon, it clearly says that it should the image product images should be product, photographs, only. Drawing and illustrations are not allowed. But a lot of people are doing it. And it looks great. And you know, if you want to try that out, for supplements for glass bottles, for some of the products, it just works really well. And I think what you need to do is create two to three renders, even if you’re hiring someone to do the renders, you know, get the front back and few other angles. And then you still do the Photoshop work on the stock images that doing the 3d render, you still need to render that product, maybe Photoshop that product in this document so that it you know, it can look real. The good thing about 3d rendering when you’re using the stock image. Now you don’t have to take photos from different angles, right? computer can do it however you wanted. On the other side, when you’re doing the photograph, you have to take the product from the exact same angle. That’s the basics you know the difference between 3d rendering and rendering other stuff.
29:37
So you mentioned Terms of Service and what’s allowed and what’s not. Can we talk about that for a second, okay, three 3d renderings are not allowed. I guess for some images they can’t clearly tell Is it a computer-generated image or no, but what else is prohibited?
29:55
prohibited for the main image you can’t really have you know, any text banners or logos or badges you can really have that should be the product only that is the most common thing people, you know, Amazon’s press listing for, as you mentioned, 3d rendering, it’s against the US. But no one can tell if the computer if the images and dates dot JPG or dot png with the same dimensions and everything, but it’s completely right. Unless someone really complains about your compart. About your image. So that is the second thing. Third thing, you know, make sure you’re not making any claims that Amazon has been really strict recently. There’s a lot of people on their images, they make claims of infographics or, you know, FDA approved or helps you lose weight stuff like this is not against the terms of policy.
30:47
So what is it like any text is against the US? Or is it just the just claims,
30:54
just just the claims? You can have that whatever you want to say, but make sure you’re not making any, any claims on your listing images with the text? That is against the policies?
31:05
Okay, is
31:06
there anything else like with respect to the backing or an old scene, like seen pictures where you put it in into some scene? That’s okay, right?
31:20
That is okay, that that is considered a lifestyle image. And you can you know, you can have those, you can have those images, and Amazon wants to monetarily see anything? And obviously, Norse words, and no, no, no, no swearing in images. That is, you know, that’s also prohibited. And so these are some of the things that that you can’t really do.
31:46
Tell me, like, how, how much budget Do I need as a new seller to create nice images?
31:53
Okay, so if you’re sorry, Yeah,
31:55
I was gonna say I was doing them myself. And so I was taking pictures with my phone and just looking for a good light outside, maybe we’re putting a sheet of paper on, on on the floor, and then I would photograph them with my phone and Photoshop, everything else. Make them white. But this was a lot of work. And they were not great. But so yeah, how much do you think is feasible?
32:20
Let’s say if you’re taking photos by yourself, and you have like, nice light coming in, you have a nice little camera that, you know, if you’re a simple product, that way, you can just take the photos or hire someone to do the Photoshop work or the editing, that’s gonna cost you around, if you’re looking for something really good quality, maybe 200 to $300 good designers gonna charge that because all images that are going to use are gonna be the licensed stock images.
32:50
Those just for photoshopping, if I’m doing the photos myself, right,
32:56
just for shopping. Yes. So yeah, there are a lot of, you know, people that you can find on you know, fiber and other stuff. But obviously, you know, the quality, you get what you pay for, right? If you want to stay competitive, you know, 200 to $300, I work with a lot of freelancers, a lot of you know, a seller. So this is approximate that you need to spend maybe 200 to 300, based on the number of images. And let’s say if you are not willing to take the photographs and the photographer, you’re sending it to the photographer, then you’re looking at anywhere around $400 for stock images only. And if we need to go with the real-life models or real-life tog Rafi, it’s going to be tough from $1,000 to $3,000. or so. It also depends, you know, what kind of quality you’re expecting, you know, if you look at the real-life tomography, some of the photos sellers are using their commercial photography, you know, they so those commercial photography is also very expensive that it can go anywhere from 3000 even more than that, right? So, but I would say stock images, you know, three to 400 and if your real-life tog Rafi 1000 to 3000 based on the number of models,
34:12
and what about the like, taking pictures of the products, like suppose we have a bottle and we want eight pictures of the bar, seven pictures of the bottle, a little bit. Stock and Photoshop, and nothing fancy. But all in, you know, what, what would be your budget for that?
34:32
Three to $400 Okay, this is a good amount and you can find, you know, great talent and templates here.
34:39
Okay, cool. Cool. All right. So yeah, I think I’m pretty much all the questions about photography, maybe just one more. Do you think it’s worth too, I mean, probably will say yes, but tell me like what, or when I was starting like I didn’t really care too much about pictures. Yeah. Okay. Everybody’s saying you need good pictures, but I just made them they were good enough for me, I would say, okay, white background, the image is pretty sharp. Okay, done, you know, do this. Why would you invest? Like, what does it really bring your case, they’re like any measurable KPI? Why would it do like great pictures? Because the more the higher the quality, the more you pay, and it’s not a linear progression, right? So I can do decent pictures for the phone, if I want to camera becomes a bit more expensive, as you said if you want to real-life pictures becomes like super expensive. Yeah, so
35:41
yeah, so yeah, I think I think that’s a really good, good question. So you know, why, why you should be spending budgeting on the product photography, you know, some lot of sellers they do photos themselves and send it to the editors, and 90% of the time, the product is something simple, something, it’s just a bottle, you can easily take photos from, but there are so many products, which cannot be you know, which cannot be which has to be done by professional for example, if you have something transparent, right? reflects a lot of you know, the lightest goes through, now you need to know, now people can see what’s behind that, you know, for taking lifestyle image. Or maybe if you have a metal product, so many so much reflection, all I see, I can tell that it’s taken by the seller himself, because there’s so many reflection, you click an image and half of the product, you can see on the product label, the writing is so tiny, the labels are so tiny, some phones and some you know, cameras won’t can’t, you know, you really have to zoom in to see that. And that is the bad experience for you know, buyers who are coming, who are just zooming in and struggling to read what’s written on the label. Right? These are some of the things maybe we were doing the laundry bags, and the products when it comes it comes in the packaging. And there’s like so many folds and everything right? So you need to spend a couple of hours to prepare that product so that the image would look good, right? You understand we’re bridging absolutely a lot of prep work that needs to be done. And stuff like that, you know, the professionals, they have all kinds of tools to make it look, you know, first thing to do the product prep, there are so many wrinkles on the fabric stuff. There’s so much you know, let’s say to clothing, let’s say to eprom Oh, you know, not everyone is in the perfect shape of the body. And if you’re trying to do it yourself in any habit, I mean, it’s not going to be just right. So either you do it on a mannequin, or you do it with the, with the model, who’s Latino, who’s got nice abs and so that the product looks good. So these are some of the things it can be done. You know, it can, it’s a pretty common DIY thing. But when you go to compete on the next level, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a subconscious thing, we think that image looks good. But when we think it from the buyer’s experience, it’s not a good experience, right, they want to immerse themselves, if the reason why you’re hiring a model, because models look good, they could have got a good physique, and people want to imagine themselves, right. In the same thing with any product, you know, same thing with, you know, a lot of the products, let’s say, the recently example I gave you the laundry bag, the product recently, but it was, you know, battle rope. And for the battle rope, it really looks good. If someone with six-pack abs is doing it, right. The same thing, if it’s a beauty product. I mean, you need to show a beautiful model in there, you know, unless you’re really you know, unless you look very attractive, you can you know, you can be the model. But the truth of the matter is that the models are professionals, they can give those expressions, which can, you know, which can connect with the buyers, and you know, they can make the decision right away. Right, the key is not to be disconnected from the buyer. Once the buyer on the Amazon page is disconnected, they’re going to go on somewhere else. The goal is to engage them before the scroll down goal is to keep them engaged. And how do you keep them engaged, is by doing lots of things at the same time copy looks great. Your reviews are good. Your price is competitive. Your images look good. You’re answering all the good questions. The buyer has nowhere else to go there. Okay, add to cart and go
39:45
Yeah, right. Very cool. Okay, that’s very convincing, I think for my personal experience. I look at the pictures I look at the title, just to make sure this is the right thing. In the I look at the number of reviews and that I buy I’m in baby no on the first result, search result page also look at the prices. And also, that’s for sure is important, but we kind of decide already there. Okay, this is a premium one with a lot of reviews. This is a, like, Yeah, super wine, with your request exactly I am someone similar all right, I don’t want to waste my time I would go with the what shows up first good reviews it. I know that you know it’s exactly what I want I’ll buy but do you know we were doing you know we had a call with our mastermind group and we were talking about you know-how. Consumer buying behavior looks like so north almost you know 30 percent of men. Did you get like us they’ll just go and buy it but the rest of the 70 percent have different buying experience somewhere to be and products and still not make decisions were made. Spend half an hour just researching what product to buy and because not everyone is financially you know. Stable. Online that the course a lot of new people coming in who are first-time buyers on I mean I was on so they want to make to due diligence right they don’t want to you know spend the money and then get them to turn it into a fund it so low not of the public at large you know the buyers they just don’t care. But just because we don’t get me you’ll we don’t look at that point but we’ll do the other 70 percent of the also we will be looking at all these things. Actually I mean I’d do kind of carriages look at the pictures and because okay honestly depends on the product if you’re buying it the bill some electronic gadgets like you said the. Thanks, they are probably able to read the description but like normal stuff and just see the pictures there so we have now but it’s interesting A. probably right many people in order to look into the detail yeah maybe a buyer you know me from me I buy from Canada, US, Germany there’s not a lot of products to compare from when it comes, s like you know go to 3 pages of 4 pages it’s the same product the same image letters I answered like which is which one is better off which one is better they’re all the same right yeah cool.
39:45
So Kamal thanks for being here tell us where can we find you. Hi yeah you can just visit us as at the AMZonestep.com or you can follow us on AMZ one step on Facebook or Instagram so instead of any help just you know just send us a message and we’ll get in touch with you. Cool we’ll put the links in the description thanks so much and good luck with your business. Thank you so much it was nice talking to you. Bye bye. Thanks for watching guys please don’t forget to leave us your feedback in the comments and press the like button if you liked this episode and make sure you’re subscribed because we’re releasing those videos regularly I’ll see you around take care bye bye.
