Jungle Scout Founder Greg Mercer Weighs in on What Works on Amazon, Ep #24

Jungle Scout founder Greg Mercer knows what works on Amazon as well as what doesn’t. If you’re learning how to run a business on Amazon or are new to the entrepreneurial world it’s hard to know where to focus your attention. In this episode of Maximizing Ecommerce, Greg lends his perspective and expertise to the conversation.

After becoming a Civil Engineer and finding the job miserable, Greg took his strong entrepreneurial spirit and forged ahead. He started selling products on Amazon—eventually completely replacing his income as an engineer. In the process of finding new products to launch, he founded Jungle Scout. Listen along as he shares his journey!

If you’ve wanted to hear from Jungle Scout founder Greg Mercer about what works on Amazon, this is your chance! He talks all things Amazon with Kevin in this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce. #Ecommerce #AmazonSeller #AmazonFBA #ProductSales… Click To Tweet

Outline of This Episode

[1:40] Kevin introduces Greg Mercer, the founder of Jungle Scout.
[5:10] How Greg got into the software business
[9:20] Developing a suite of products
[13:00] The big thing that is working today
[16:40] There is no cookie-cutter formula for success
[17:45] What’s not working on Amazon
[21:00] How to describe your product
[22:30] To diversify or not?
[31:00] Where you should devote your time
[35:20] What Greg wishes he would’ve known
[37:40] What is Pickleball?
[40:45] Million Dollar Case study and other resources

How did Jungle Scout come about?

Back in the day Amazon was a different landscape. To gauge what products sold and how well they did, many people utilized the “999” trick. Amazon allows you to purchase a maximum of 999 units of a product. If you put that product in your cart and the inventory wasn’t available, Google would return an error message—stating exactly how many units they were actually available. When checked daily, it was an archaic way of tracking how well a certain product sold.

Greg started toying around with different algorithms to solve the problem for himself. He knew there had to be a better way to track sales and gauge how certain products sold.

His first attempt was crude, with 10-20 data points and a simple linear regression. He continued to develop and build a better algorithm. He started selling it in an attempt to recoup what he had spent developing it. Amazingly, Jungle Scout took off and has since grown into an empire. Greg never intended to build a software business, but ended up filling a need that existed for every seller.

What is the one big thing Greg Mercer recommends doing?

Anyone can make a specific niche work well. They can sell in one particular niche with a limited selection of products. Or they can focus on selling small, light, inexpensive products. Others focus on high-quality expensive products. There is an endless amount of routes you can take to find success on Amazon.

The “big thing” that Greg recommends you do? Focus on making improvements to an existing product.

It doesn’t have to be a product that you even offer. Choose a product that sells well, and spend time going through the negative reviews for the product. Take those negatives and have your factory make improvements to the product.

Greg Mercer—founder of Jungle Scout—recommends one thing you have to do to successfully sell on Amazon. Want to know what it is? Check out this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce now! #Ecommerce #AmazonSeller #AmazonFBA #ProductSales… Click To Tweet

Is the fabric too thin? Find a different material.

Does a certain element of the product break? Does it continue to function properly? Whatever the problem is, fix it in production—then start selling it yourself. Your positive reviews and ratings will begin to rank higher than the other products, driving traffic to the product you sell over your competitor.

Build your product descriptions around what customers are saying

It can be difficult to accurately describe your products. We all have certain adjectives we lean towards that we think best describe something. You may describe a towel as absorbent or moisture-wicking, but your customer describes it as “fluffy” or “soft to the touch”.

While all those words describe your product, changing the product description to use the words your customers use can make a significant impact.

Why? Because that’s what they’re looking for. The terms they are searching for need to be in your product description. It helps solidify and validate that it was exactly the product they were looking for.

The big debate: Do you diversify?

There is a large push in Ecommerce right now towards diversification. AKA, don’t put all your eggs in the Amazon basket. Many people advocate directing traffic to your product website or other sales channels. They argue that you need to build an email list that you can market to off of Amazon. All in the off-chance Amazon may suspend your account at some point in time.

Greg argues if 90% of your sales are through Amazon, why focus your time elsewhere?

Your account may be suspended at some point in the lifetime of your business, but it is rare that suspended accounts won’t get reinstated. The actual risk of an account suspension is far lower than the perceived risk. Instead, Greg recommends doubling down on what is working and focus on the things that you do exceptionally well.

Kevin and Greg discuss reinstating suspended accounts, optimization, where to focus your time, and much more—so check out the whole episode now!

Should you diversify your sales channels? Should you focus all your attention on Amazon? Kevin chats with Jungle Scout founder Greg Mercer about these questions. Listen to this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce to hear his take! #Ecommerce… Click To Tweet