[Follow-up] Sales increased 8 times in half a year, and I became an Amazon manager

Unsuccessful first job

It was not a surprise that I came into contact with Amazon, because I tinkered with Taobao for a while in my spare time during college. Although I had little capital as a student and wanted to focus my main energy on my studies, I started using Taobao just for fun.

However, at that time, because the category was very niche, there was little competition and the investment was small, I could still make a thousand yuan a month. Thanks to this side job, I lived a comfortable life in college, and I also began to have a strong interest in e-commerce.

After graduation, I still chose a job related to my major. After all, I chose bioengineering because it was my hobby. Although it is difficult to find a job and the initial salary is low, I still have some hope.

However, he was severely taught a lesson by reality. After living in poverty for quite a long time, he finally couldn't stand the pressure and embarrassment and resigned.

Of course, I didn't fight a battle without preparation. I was working on the next step before I came out. Just at this time, a boss I met while working part-time at Taobao in college offered me an olive branch, so I went to his e-commerce company to start a new operation job.

Taobao’s transformation, where is the new way out?

After I changed jobs, I quickly got the hang of Taobao operations and successfully launched several new products. Not only did I get a much higher salary than before, but I also gained recognition from my boss. With our previous friendship, we had no reservations and often discussed the e-commerce environment, company strategy, and other matters together.

So we agreed very early on that the domestic e-commerce market was basically going downhill. The maturity of the market and the increasingly fierce competition limited our profit margins and would only form a vicious cycle. My boss wanted me to develop other overseas platforms and told me to be responsible for the operation while he would provide the funding.

I quickly decided to choose Amazon as the new platform to try. My boss agreed with my idea after a brief introduction, and our Amazon store opened soon.

Because China has relatively mature products and supply chains, I selected some potential products and uploaded them based on overseas customer portraits. At that time, Amazon’s cumbersome uploading steps really confused me, so I just figured it out step by step by referring to the tutorials of the official Seller University.

After the product was uploaded correctly, I found some evaluation resources based on my experience on Taobao. The sales of the listing began to gradually increase. By the end of last year, it had reached more than 10,000 US dollars. The unit price was not low, and the profit was much higher than that of domestic products.

However, when the sales volume reached around 10,000, it seemed to have reached a bottleneck, and sales remained at this level for a long time without any significant growth.

Having tasted the sweetness of profit, I must find a way to overcome this hurdle. However, Amazon has become increasingly strict with reviews, and the weight of the reviews is also unstable. There are even cases where new products have had their reviews emptied. I was so scared that I didn’t dare touch any products for a while.

At this time, the boss reminded me, and I realized that working in isolation was not a good idea. After all, we are working on a brand new platform and are not familiar with the rules. If we figure it out on our own, we might suffer a big loss. The previous sales might be due to product dividends. If we want to continue to grow in the future, we have to learn more about the experience and rules of this industry.

A turning point: In-site advertising as a breakthrough

I added Alice through some articles. She was very patient with my questions at first, which made me feel more reliable. I also realized that I had many misunderstandings about concepts and operations. After knowing that she also opened training classes, I discussed with my boss and found acquaintances to confirm whether Alice really had the real talent.

The boss used his personal network to find out that Alice had indeed been a vice president of a foreign trade company in Suzhou and was very capable, so he agreed to let me give it a try.

I personally think that the part of this course that helped me the most was the in-site advertising strategy. Since the CPC of Amazon and the direct train mechanism of Taobao are very different, we chose to only turn on automatic at the beginning, and the effect was not obvious, so we did not conduct in-depth research.

After class, I realized that manual advertising has such a profound gameplay, which requires the combination of optimization, keyword embedding, and keyword ranking. Because I couldn't take photos or videos, I took notes throughout the class and digested them slowly after returning.

After I came back, I shared my next ideas with my boss (after all, the boss was paying for it), and began to transform several existing products from the simplest to the most complex, starting with repositioning keywords and titles, and starting a segmented manual advertising plan according to the creation phase.

Soon the product started to gain momentum, exceeding $20,000 in May, and even reaching $4,000 a day on Prime Day (although it was only for one day).

This gave me great motivation. I then further digested and implemented the content of the class, combined with some advertising suggestions from the teacher, and started a new round of advertising combinations to keep the product rising. By last month, the monthly sales were close to 80,000 US dollars.

Although the average unit price has dropped, the profits brought by a large number of orders are still very considerable. We can also apply this successful advertising strategy to more new products and achieve higher sales targets.

Now my boss is ready to let me build a team and be responsible for the construction of the entire Amazon department. Whether it is salary or work, I now feel that the future is bright. Compared with domestic platforms, Amazon does still have some opportunities. Seize the opportunity and you can make a comeback!