amazon, and wrat fait for the s to come in. peter kerns is a former amazon manager and is now an independent consultant, helping brands launch sales on various internet site, including amazon. they had a kick starter campaign that was fully backed, so they created some following there. they created some off-amazon presence, instagram, social media. so people knew about their product before they started selling. he says much of nut pod s success comes from the social media awareness and following they built before they listed on amazon. and that is usually one of the key indicators in terms of how a brand is going to be successful, is how they get up there and what they bring with them when their products go live. once they went live, peter says the details page was key. when you re looking at the detail page here, you can see, you know, first of all, their images, they blow up automatically. they have a lifestyle image of a person holding a cup of coffee with the creamer in
you can hop on amazon, type in a product you want to sell, and see who pops up first. this is going to give you a really great indication of how to title your product, what product description information needs to be included, what kind of images are going to need to be there. and if you type something in and there are only three or four competitors there, as was the case with folding tables and chairs, that s a really good market to get into. so is there an industry incoi consultant you can hire to help optimize your page for amazon? oh, my gosh, absolutely. there are tons of people. you can go to google and type in amazon directory. you re going to get tons of information on people who do this exact thing, people who will help you optimize your product listing so you show up one to four on amazon. so do not just willy nilly put your page up there. think of it like your website. finally, when you write your
naturally nutty nondairy creamer. put it on kick starter and asked people to invest their money only if they thought it was something they would buy. the $30,000 will go towards converting my kitchen formula into a commercial formulation. what i specifically said is if you actually think that you would use nut pods, then by all means, i d love to have your support. in just one month, she raised $32,000 from 500 people. and that, she says, was her answer. it really told me that people wanted to have this. with their production in place, along with information about future customers thanks to kick starter, madeline was ready for launch, and the place she went was amazon. for us to be able to go on amazon have pretty much nationwide distribution overnight, it really allowed me to have a direct way to consumers so they could learn about who we were, what we were trying to do, and what our products were. oh, boy.
like beginner s luck, madeline is quick with a correction. i m not a spring chicken. i m in my 40s. it has allowed me to take my experiences as a consumer, as working in different industries and be able to, you know, perfect them and learn about them and apply them in my own company. if you are also thinking about growing your e-commerce sales on amazon but doern t kno where to start or are already doing it but not doing it well, our next guest has valuable advice for you. tracy wallace is editor in chief at big commerce, a leading e-commerce platform for fast-growing businesses. previously she covered online selling for mashable and elle.com. good to see you. good to be here. thanks for having me. amazon can really make your business. i know a lot of people who do a lot of sales on amazon. so let s just go through what you need to do to make it work. and the first thing you say is be unique.
also important are the user reviews. peter says consumers often start their research by reading them. they re looking at the reviews. they want to know, you know, is this a good product, is it a bad product, what are people saying about it, what are the things that i need to know. even if they don t buy on amazon, they go there because they want their peer review. 62% of all shopping searches start on amazon. while amazon doesn t permit sellers to ask their customers to write reviews, peter says that madeline s interactions with customers on other social media has helped generate community enthusiasm, which then stimulates reviews. when brands do that, the customers are going to be more inclined to want to speak out about that, write a review, share their great experiences. so far, it s working. thanks to their rapid growth on amazon, madeline is developing new products and has become stocking nut pods in local brick and mortar grocery stores as well. part of our succes