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Before entering the main text, Lee wants to say that new product promotion is a commonplace issue, but this commonplace issue has become a monthly or even daily topic on the forum, and the topic is always new and hot, and everyone present has contributed to it. Especially in the area of advertising promotion, it has even spawned a metaphysics ranging from food to marriage. It can only be said that everyone has been struggling with promotion for a long time. Let me give you a few examples that Lee still remembers:
Boston Lobster Optimization Promotion Method (forgive me for not remembering the original name) The unknown promotion secret of the lotus-eating man, and is the poster a couple with him? Black water pipes vs. thousands of faces
These posts about promotion are wonderful and eye-opening. Lee also put forward his own point of view: the bonus period of a product is only a few years, and as the competition environment intensifies, the bonus period will continue to shorten, from a few years in the past to a year or even a few months now. We can even be more precise, it is about 3 months. Why 3 months? When a new product is put on the shelves and achieves good results in the first month, competitors will start to imitate it, and it takes a month to make samples and a month to ship and put on the shelves. Therefore, in theory, the better your new product performs, the faster it will be exposed and copied, resulting in more intense competition and faster death.
To sum it up in five words: exposure means death. Lee calls it the Dark Forest Law of Amazon’s new products .
Chapter I Stay hungry, Stay foolish
When talking about the Dark Forest Law, we have to talk about the book "The Three-Body Problem". Lee first read the book in the "Science Fiction World" series. After reading it sporadically, he has grown from a young man to a professional. The book has also won the Hugo Award and started to go viral around the world. However, unlike the phrase "Natural Selection Goes Forward Four" that many people talk about, what impressed Lee the most in the book when he was a teenager was the comment made by the Three-Body people on the earthlings: You are bugs.
And Dashi’s response: We are all bugs, but bugs have never been defeated.
Please allow Lee to quote the original text about the bug below:
... "Why did you bring us here?" Wang Miao asked.
"Look at the bugs." Dashi said as he lit a cigar given by Colonel Stanton, pointing at the wheat field in front of him with the cigar.
Wang Miao and Ding Yi then discovered that the field was covered with a thick layer of locusts. There were several locusts crawling on each wheat stalk. On the ground, more locusts were wriggling, looking like a sticky liquid.
"Is there a locust plague here too?" Wang Miao drove away the locusts on a small patch of land on the ridge of the field and sat down.
"Like the sandstorm, it existed ten years ago, but this year is the worst."
"So what? Dashi, nothing matters anymore." Ding Yi said, still drunk.
I just want to ask you two to think about a question: " Is the technological gap between the people on Earth and the Trisolarans bigger, or is the technological gap between the locusts and us bigger? "
This question was like a bucket of cold water poured on the heads of the two drunk scientists. They stared at the piles of locusts in front of them, their expressions gradually becoming solemn. They soon understood what Da Shi meant.
Look, these are bugs. The gap between their technology and ours is far greater than the gap between us and the Trisolarian civilization. Humans have tried their best to eliminate them, using all kinds of poisons, spraying with airplanes, introducing and cultivating their natural enemies, searching for and destroying their eggs, sterilizing them with genetic modification, burning them with fire, flooding them with water, every family has pest control spirits to deal with them, and every desk has weapons like fly swatters to kill them... This long war has accompanied the entire human civilization, and the outcome is still undecided. The bugs have not been exterminated, they still walk proudly between heaven and earth, and their number is no less than before the emergence of humans. The Trisolarians who regard humans as bugs seem to have forgotten one fact: bugs have never been truly defeated...
What Lee wants to express by quoting this passage is that sometimes we are like the two scientists in the book. Too much complicated data and technology will blind our eyes, and the knowledge you have mastered will also make you think by inertia in familiar fields. When we are obsessed with the flywheel theory built by Amazon, the new product bonus period, traffic and conversion, automatic manual advertising, time-sharing price adjustment and Chat GPT intervention, etc., you find that you have lost the ability to break out of the circle. At this time, it was Da Shi, an outsider, who revealed the truth with the simple bug theory, so Liu Electrician wrote this passage next:
...The sun was blocked by a small black cloud, casting a moving shadow on the ground. This was no ordinary cloud, but a large group of locusts that had just arrived. They soon began to land on the nearby fields. The three people were bathed in the rain of life, feeling the dignity of life on Earth. Ding Yi and Wang Miao slowly poured the two bottles of wine in their hands onto the North China Plain under their feet, as a toast to the insects.
"Da Shi, thank you." Wang Miao extended his hand to Da Shi.
"Thank you too." Ding Yi held Dashi's other hand.
"Let's go back quickly. We have a lot of work to do." Wang Miao said...
We started as rookies, and when we entered Amazon, we were like wild animals from the wilderness, retracting our claws and fangs, and learning the rules of being human for the first time;
When we finally became human and adapted to the platform rules, we found that the platform had changed and the rules we were familiar with were no longer effective.
When Temu was like a hungry wolf, scrambling for food, playing unconventionally, and beating Amazon, the master, to death,
Where are your claws and teeth? Where is your former beastly nature?
So in the book, another tragic character, Thomas Wade, said: Lose humanity, lose a lot, lose bestiality, lose everything.
This is the first inspiration that The Three-Body Problem brought to Lee: Like a wild animal, always remain highly alert to changes in the environment and continue to learn new knowledge and new skills. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Chapter II Amazon's new product launch and the Dark Forest Law
Back to the Dark Forest Principle, in The Three-Body Problem this principle can be expressed in four principles:
Survival is the first need of civilization. Civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains the same. Chain of suspicion : A civilization (A) cannot judge whether another civilization (B) is benign or malicious. A civilization (A) cannot judge whether another civilization (B) thinks it (A) is benign or malicious. A civilization (A) cannot judge whether another civilization (B) thinks it (A) thinks it (B) is benign or malicious... Technological explosion : The speed and acceleration of civilization progress are not necessarily the same. A weak civilization may surpass a strong civilization in a short period of time. It may be caused by internal or external factors (such as communication between cosmic civilizations). For example, the huge technological leap in just over 200 years after humans entered the industrial revolution (compared to the 3 million years of existence of the human species and the more than 7,000 years of civilization) is an example.
Based on the above four concepts, Lee tried to interpret the Dark Forest Law with his own understanding:
1. Due to the possibility of technological explosion, weak civilizations may surpass strong civilizations in a short period of time. The process of surpassing and after surpassing will consume more resources. However, since the total resources in the universe are limited, the rise of the weak will affect the survival of the strong.
2. At this time, the two sides can solve the resource problem through communication and negotiation, or by destroying one side. However, due to the distance between cosmic civilizations, different languages, cultures and values, communication and negotiation are very difficult. After finally communicating, the strong side does not know whether the weak side can agree to the plan, and even communication itself will lead to the development of the other side (i.e., suspicion chain). For the strong side, the cost and complexity of a peaceful solution through negotiation is much higher than directly destroying the weak side.
At this time, the best option is to discover and destroy (Lee has explained it to the best of his ability. If you still don’t understand, you can read the original text of The Three-Body Problem. Electrician Liu wrote it very well).
Regardless of whether this theory is universal, let's take a look at whether the entire Amazon ecosystem is particularly consistent with the Dark Forest Law in the Three-Body Universe:
Survival is the first need of civilization - making money from products is the first need of Amazon Civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains the same - new sellers and products keep pouring in, but Amazon’s traffic is gradually capping out Suspicion chain: I don’t know whether the seller on the other side follows/imitates me just to make a little money to make a living or to replace me. I also don’t know whether I will retaliate if the seller on the other side follows/imitates me, and we are not willing to communicate about this. Technological explosion: Our competitors can quickly surpass us in terms of orders by using low-price coupons, and it is difficult to recover the lost orders and slots.
We cannot say they are exactly the same, we can only say they are exactly the same.
Some people may say that this is a bit forced and deliberately promotes anxiety. Why did those who worked on black technology work on black technology and those who worked on white hats work on white hats? Can everyone live in peace and make their own money? In fact, the key point is the second point. If a pie is growing continuously, everyone can live in peace, but if a pie stops growing or even has negative growth, everyone will immediately fight each other.
Chapter III Breaking the Wall Plan
At the end of The Three-Body Problem, the human civilization of the solar system was hit by a dimensionality reduction attack due to arrogance, and the solar system civilization was destroyed. The starship civilization represented by Zhang Beihai was reborn in blood and fire. Since humans are not extinct, we can understand, apply and even crack the Dark Forest Theory by summarizing what the wall-facing people and their successors did in several eras, such as Luo Ji, who cheated on food and drink and got a wife for free (crossed out). Liu Cixin has a very wonderful description of this in The Three-Body Problem. When facing the attack of the three bodies, humans once proposed three plans: the bunker plan (not mentioned here), the black domain plan, and the light speed spacecraft plan. With the most imaginative two-dimensional foil in the book, we have at least the following three ways to deal with it, namely:
Creating Black Area Lightspeed spaceship: Fight speed with speed - as long as I run fast, you can't catch up) Two-dimensional Foil: Dimensionality Reduction Attack
Corresponding to Amazon, let's look at them one by one:
1. Create a black zone - actively show weakness
If I were to elaborate on the concept of the black domain, I could write thousands of words, but after all, we sellers are working on Amazon, not doing physics research, so it’s fine as long as we understand the basic concept. In simple terms, the black domain is to artificially create a low-speed black hole to confine oneself. People in the black domain can’t get out, and people outside can hardly get in. In this way, people in the black domain can live a simple life behind closed doors, and at the same time use this method to tell others (cosmic safety statement) that I won’t mess with you, and you don’t mess with me either.
In fact, there is a similar concept for the promotion of new products on Amazon: do not promote new products to the top , as the top is easy to be targeted, and control sales to the second tier of BSR in small categories. In the early stage, by showing weakness, potential competitors will subconsciously ignore our products even if they see them, because this product is tasteless to them and it is not a pity to abandon it. When you have a firm foothold in the later stage, you can continue to consolidate your position by adding variants and other methods.
2. Lightspeed flight - fight fast with fast
The opposite of the Black Domain Plan is the Light Speed Flight Plan. In the original novel, when the Singer Civilization deployed the two-dimensional foil to two-dimensionalize the solar system at the speed of light, light speed flight was later proven to be the only successful means of cracking the two-dimensionalization. It is based on this that the Starship Civilization left its own voice on behalf of human civilization in the universe.
Lee's understanding of flying at the speed of light is that when you are preparing to destroy me at the speed of light, I will be singing "You can't hit me, there is no way I'm that strong" while also moving away from harm at the speed of light. The distance between us will always exist .
In a nutshell, the only martial arts in the world that cannot be defeated is speed.
Corresponding to Amazon's new product launch, it is the familiar big seller who prepares resources in advance, ignores the promotion cost and launches new products quickly. More importantly, big sellers often do not launch a new product, but multiple teams in the company start a track at the same time to achieve BSR dominance. When competitors discover this product, they will only sigh at the speed of new product launch and the power of capital monopoly, and will not even think of imitating it.
So do small and medium-sized sellers have no chance to do so? Lee believes that there are fifty numbers of Da Yan, forty-nine of which are used, and one is missing. In the subcategories and advantageous categories that we have cultivated, there are also opportunities to quickly launch new products and occupy market share. Instead of wasting development resources in 2024 on the rollout of different new categories, it is better to concentrate limited resources to achieve rapid monopoly of different groups and different price points in the subcategories that we have cultivated.
3. Two-dimensional Foil - Dimensionality Reduction Attack
The concept of dimensionality reduction is already well known, so I won’t go into details here. However, Lee has some immature ideas on how to use it on Amazon:
The so-called dimensionality reduction strike, when applied to the business field, refers more to the fact that the levels of the two parties are fundamentally different. One party has a huge advantage in competition, and the advantaged party can use the level difference and advantage difference to crush the opponent. So the focus here is to establish and explore our advantages to compete with the opponent. If this understanding is still too abstract, Lee gave a few familiar examples from Amazon:
Private mold products——public mold products Low-priced products - High-priced products Segmented population - public population Brand sellers - white label sellers FBA – FBM Supply Chain – Traders Off-site traffic diversion - on-site advertising
There are so many examples that I won’t list them all.
We have talked about a lot of theories before. Specifically speaking of the promotion of new products in 2024, Lee would like to talk about the dimensionality reduction of brands . For small and medium-sized sellers, there are people who call for brand overseas expansion and promotion every year, and people who persuade them to quit every year, saying that the money invested has no effect, and it has always been thunder with little rain. Lee used to think that it was difficult for Amazon to create a real brand. A number of domestic Taobao brands are a lesson for us. For example, the platform will give you traffic/activities/support in the prosperous period, and it will take it back in the recession period. It is not just the platform itself that destroyed the Taobao brand, but a series of brands settled in Tmall. The platform is just one of the accomplices. This just confirms the famous saying in The Three-Body Problem: What does it have to do with you if I destroy you? In view of this, everyone is more on the sidelines, or comforting themselves that someone invested a huge amount of money to build a brand independent website, but didn't even hear a sound.
Lee's concept of brand changed at the Shenzhen Amazon Summit last November. At the summit, Lee noticed that a group of executives had mentioned the word "Brand" many times, and it was the kind of highlight. At that time, Lee had a feeling that in a growing market, it doesn't matter whether you do branding or not. Sellers can get a share of the pie through evaluation, order brushing, black technology, promotion coupons, etc., but when the tide recedes, you will know who is swimming naked. Sellers who have been branding and have gained loyal fans, this part of the brand traffic is actually not affected, and it may even increase, because in the era of consumption downgrade, if you spend the same money, people are more willing to buy familiar and trusted brands.
Back to the familiar operation and promotion, the power of the brand is also unrivaled, and we all have this feeling:
Big brands don’t need advertising, they can do well with natural brand traffic The conversion rate of brand + keyword is very high Brand advertising is still a blue ocean
When a whale dies, everything comes to life. The decline of one thing will lead to the rise of another. The sum of nature remains unchanged. Perhaps the rise of temu will lead to the decline of Amazon's natural traffic, and the decline of natural traffic will lead to the rise of brand traffic and brand promotion. Everything will always find its own way out, so Lee thinks that 2024 can really be called the first year of Amazon brand, and those who have accumulated brand fans and traffic will definitely be a dimensionality reduction blow to traditional white-label sellers.
Some people may say that you keep talking about white-label products, but Amazon now basically has brands. Here Lee wants to introduce a point of view that brands are different from each other.
General Amazon brands: I want to make this product, but I can’t do it without a brand. In order to ensure the pass rate, I just think of a letter combination that can pass. After enrolling on Amazon, I am a brand seller.
Brand in the eyes of foreigners: Who does my product serve? I need a brand that reflects the tone of the product group, and it must be catchy so that they can remember it at a glance. Then I will use social media to invite KOLs to test it in a small range to accumulate word of mouth. When I have a certain fan base, I will enter Amazon.
Lee has studied many brands, both foreign and domestic. From the point of view of being catchy, easy to remember and pronounce, most Chinese sellers can be said to have no brand awareness. What you have is not a brand, at best it is just a bunch of letter combinations that foreigners can't even spell out. Calling it a white label is a compliment.
At the Amazon 2023 Summit attended by 30,000 people, Lee noticed that Amazon’s PPT had a serious guide to recommending everyone to come up with a good brand name. Lee felt a sense of empathy when he saw it.
So the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, and the second best time is now - it is never too late to build a brand. Start by carefully analyzing your target audience and coming up with a memorable brand name. Lee believes that doing this is a dimensionality reduction strike in terms of consciousness.
Chapter IV Ending:
At this point, it’s almost time to end this article. As usual, I will answer a few questions that everyone is concerned about:
Q: Which of the three methods, black domain, light speed, and two-dimensional foil, is better?
A: Each method has its own scope of application, and there is no saying that one is better or worse. In short:
Black Domain is suitable for those who have just entered an unfamiliar category and cannot see an obvious profit point, or who are unable to do so and have limited resources and can only start with one product.
Lightspeed has a proven profit model, and there are no strong competitors in this blue ocean market. The product also has plenty of room for subsequent modifications. So Lee suggested going all in and using the product matrix approach.
Two-dimensional foil is a dimensionality reduction attack. It is never too late to do big killers like brand promotion. However, it is a long-term investment. If you expect to invest 1 yuan today and get a return of 10 yuan tomorrow, Lee still recommends that you adjust your mindset before entering the market. Amazon's quick success and quick profit approach is actually contrary to the concept of long-term branding.
Q: Aren't we supposed to cultivate in depth and carefully? Why are you teaching everyone to fight fast with fast? You can't do any one well, but you encourage them to have multiple product lines? Isn't that going to kill you faster?
A: Operations must be done in depth and meticulously. Seizing opportunities is like taking advantage of a fire, which only takes a split second. This is not contradictory.
The difficulty of digging a hole and occupying it is different from the difficulty of squeezing others out of the hole.
Finally, Lee would like to share with you a few words from The Three-Body Problem:
In the universe, no matter how fast you are, there is always someone faster than you, and no matter how slow you are, there is always someone slower than you.
Westerners are no smarter than Easterners, but they have found the right way.
Survival is something that needs to be fought for, when did it become taken for granted?
Go forward! Go forward! Go forward by any means necessary!
I wish you all a happy new year and a prosperous Year of the Dragon!
"Wonderful Reply"
Xiaonanxiansen Agree from: weixin65047, CatherineLi, Tito123, Ponyo is here, ljx923928951 more » Thumbs up, it’s very well written. I read it twice carefully. Articles like this need to be pinned to the top.
There is a problem: the exposure of new products means their death. If you push them slowly in the early stage, it is actually not in line with Amazon's algorithm. If you merge variants later, it is not easy for this product to be in the front. Now on Amazon, if you don't have a leading style, when the market declines, the first to be hurt are also the tail styles, because the leading ones are the first to sense it. So how to solve this problem?
I used to think it was difficult to build a brand on Amazon. But as the blogger mentioned (Brand in the eyes of foreigners: Who does my product serve? I need a brand that reflects the tone of the product group, and it must be catchy so that they can remember it at a glance. Then I will use social media to invite KOLs to test it in a small range, accumulate word of mouth, and when I have a certain fan base, I will enter Amazon)
This works for some brands. The high premiums generated by those brands have high profits. However, when the market is competitive, the extremely low prices also make users question. I have encountered several such categories. In the end, after others lowered their prices, they gained a lot of sales, but the sales of the brands declined. It feels like bad money drives out good money. It's a pity.
Anonymous user
Agree with: XuryMeister, Potato Crispy Shark, There is a Cat Like Me, Red Desert, Ponyo is Here "In theory, the better your new product performs, the faster it will be exposed and copied, which will lead to more intense competition and a faster demise."
When I first saw this sentence, I admit that I was just trying to make a joke. After all, this formula is very suitable for making a joke: the better the sales = the faster the death
But when I found out today that one of the best-selling links in my store had three or four identical items appearing in recent months, I knew I was wrong.
So I came back specially to leave a message to you, thank you for sharing, I will read it again.
I was really wrong to learn with an open mind instead of just for fun. My Kitten is Called Banknote • Nanjing • 2024-02-06 16:30 The data is transparent. Public mold products do not have any technical barriers. You can search on 1688 and negotiate the price directly on Amazon. The competition is all about selling price and cost. If the product sells well and the data is good, it will be immediately seen by the product selection machine. Private mold products do not have this worry, but it costs a lot of money to make molds and produce them. It is not something that small sellers can do. In addition, private molds have patents before they are sold, and the source of goods will not be supplied to third parties, otherwise they will be sued.
Smilain Agree with: Worry-free Little Daidai, Amazon Worker, I have a cat, Ponyo is here Here are the dry goods:
Application of Black Domain Theory: completed through distribution model;
Application of the speed of light theory: accomplished through high incentives;
Application of two-dimensional foil theory: completed through optimizing supply chain;
I can’t go into too much detail, but the above is the new model I studied. I have used all three theories. They are indeed indispensable. I call it the Three-part Return to Origin Qi. Worry -free little Dai Dai • Nanjing • 2024-02-05 10:07 Another point depends on speed! In the world of martial arts, only speed can not be defeated. Quickly launch new products, quickly promote, and quickly withdraw. The main goal is not to fight for a long time.
acos in the space station • Hangzhou • 2024-02-07 09:54 @No worries, little stupid : fast food delivery
lanzi 8 - Product Development Agree with: Ponyo is here Yes, I agree very much. After I developed some products, when I went to the overseas warehouse, I found that there were already a lot of the same models. There was no other way except to clear the stock at a low price. So what is the way out for small sellers? The dimension of product selection is not fierce, and it is not on the list. Is it possible that you predicted the prediction of others and finally took the same path, or is Amazon's only private model the final solution?
Anonymous user
Agree with: Ponyo is here "In theory, the better your new product performs, the faster it will be exposed and copied, which will lead to more intense competition and faster death." I really understand this sentence. It is because the product sold too well before, the company's supply chain could not keep up, and after a long period of out-of-stock, the link died after the second batch arrived, and many low-priced products appeared on the market.
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