Welcome to issue #2 of

Ecom Product Finders Newsletter!

Today:

🐾 My first dog's death was my fault.

📈 Why is a high return rate an opportunity for you?

⚠️ Why selling simply customized products is dangerous?

🔍 Where to start your next product research?

💸 You can be fined by the IRS $500/day.

🐾 My first dog’s death was my fault.

Back in 1990, my mom got a German Shepherd puppy; we named her Zenda. The primary reason was that my mom wanted me to feel safe when I was outside.

I learned how to be disciplined, responsible, and keep secrets safe because Zenda would keep them to herself.

I slept with her on her pad because my mom did not allow her on the bed. I danced with her, her paws on my shoulders, and she was my protector from strangers when we went through K9 training.

She knew how to walk next to me without a leash, was awesome at listening, and executed commands flawlessly. She was always by my side.

One day, when she was 10 years old, I went for a walk with her. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed she was 5 meters behind, turning around, I saw her chewing something. I commanded, "Fu," which in Russian means "drop it" for a dog. She dropped it, but it was too late.

She had eaten something that infected her with leptospirosis, and at that time, there were zero chances to save her. I watched her die over the next five days.

I have never forgiven myself. I did not pay enough attention and relied too much on my dog's discipline. To this day, I still see her in my dreams.

She was my best friend, the keeper of my secrets.

📈 Why is a high return rate an opportunity for you?
First, where can you find the numbers of the returns?

When you run a niche analysis inside Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer, this number will appear in the right corner with the metrics.

When you look at the low conversion rate of the products and high return rate (6% and up), it means that your audience cannot find what they are searching for, and WHEN they find a compromise product, they don’t like the look, the quality, or something else, and they return it.

Your question will be: “So, what should I do with all that info?”

You have to learn the reasons for the returns and your customers' expectations to purchase those products.

There are a couple of ways to do that:

1. On the screen below, Amazon tells you the reasons for the returns and the trends month by month for specific traits. I hope we will be able to upload it soon as an Excel sheet to ChatGPT and analyze the pattern without reading line by line. But this day is not today.

2. You can read those insights via VOC.AI. Look at the screenshot below, and you can find out what your competitors are missing, and how you can improve it.

Based on those insights, you can make a decision on how to improve the product and if it even makes financial sense. Sometimes, improvements are very expensive and the market is not ready to pay for higher quality.

It does not mean no one would. It means it might be a very hard sell

As I promised, in each newsletter, I will be covering one of the product submissions to validate the product. 

Please watch the 9:46-minute video with the breakdowns of validations.

Do you want me to validate YOUR idea?

Drop it in the 'hot seat' request form. I'll pick one to feature in each issue.

⚠️ Why selling simply customized products is dangerous?

Believe it or not, I thought the time where people do not understand the purpose of product customization had passed.

It did not. 90% of sellers and new sellers coming to our Agency believe that putting a label on a product is the right thing to win the market.

It might work on some marketplaces, like TikTok, IG, etc. When you are building a Brand, you have to differentiate your product, provide value and problem awareness to your client.

Because problem awareness is not happening, people are making returns AND they are NOT buying the product.

Here is a simple example.

One of the sellers has a supplement on Amazon with an ingredient that is sticking to the teeth. But this ingredient is the actual thing that creates results for his customers.

On his listing, he did not communicate that the customers NEEDS this ingredient in order to have the effects and results they want.

The moment he changed the listing so that it explicitly explained it - he dropped the returns below 0.5% and increased conversion on his listing.

When it comes to simple customization, you are creating a lot of copycats that want to compete with you. If you just changed the color on your product, it means anyone can do that too.

If you added some features that are not easy to replicate and you filed the copyright, you won the market.

Do you think it is easy or hard to recreate those products?

So do others.

Do you feel this newsletter is providing you value? Please share it with your friends and entrepreneurs, using your personal link below.

We've got rewards for you: free services, Starbucks Gift Cards, and cash prizes!

🔍 Where to start your next product research?

There are plenty of different opportunities for where to start that you already know about, here is the one that you probably did not utilize yet.

TikTok and IG influencers are passing along to you the ideas of products that they are promoting.

By making those videos, they are increasing the demand for this product, and buyers are not just clicking on their links, they are also searching for those products on Google and Amazon, trying to find out what else is on the market, which is increasing the demand.

If the Brand is working with the influencers for a long time, the demand will keep growing. It does not mean the competition will (as a reminder, you can always check the amount of new competitors on APOE).

If you don’t remember where to find those numbers,

Reply to this e-mail, saying “Tell me more.”

To find those influencers and start to be targeted by similar bloggers, use the keyword “amazon product findings” 

💸 You can be fined by the IRS $500/day.

The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is a bipartisan law that was passed by Congress in 2021. The CTA requires many companies that do business in the United States to report information about their beneficial owners. The information is then stored in a confidential database by the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The CTA's main purpose is to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Penalties for violating the CTA include:

• Civil penalties of up to $500 per day

• Criminal penalties in the form of fines up to $10,000, imprisonment of up to two years, or both

Answer to Trivia:

Being out of stock isn't the end of the world, as long as it's not for more than two-three months. Amazon's got a "Temporarily out of stock" label where they can keep selling your products even when you're out. Just create your shipment, input the tracking number to Amazon, and they'll keep advertising and selling your inventory to buyers.

For those times when you're out and in a process of restocking soon, pre-orders are the way to go. It lets customers order ahead, and they get their items shipped as soon as you're stocked up again. It's a great move for new releases or certain types of products.

Back-ordering is another option, kind of like pre-orders. Customers can buy items that aren't in stock yet, knowing there'll be a bit of a wait for shipping until you've got more inventory. Whether you can offer this depends on how you fulfill orders and what Amazon's rules are for your type of product.

See you in 2 weeks,

Izabella Ritz