A lot of people think they need to invent a wild new product to sell on Amazon, but the reality is that it has nothing to do with innovation and everything to do with perceived value. During this session, we have Norm and Neil, experts on e-commerce discuss the importance of understanding the types of consumers and how to increase and work around perceived value.
“Start creating habits of looking at products from a sellable position, not a buyer position.”
“We’re talking about innovating on slight variation, differences that create a unique or higher perceived value in the product specifically for the avatar in which you’re trying to serve.”
NEIL
True business building starts by choosing the right product for the right reasons. Don’t go around trying to follow trends because you will not make any profit. Make an informed, objective, and analytical decision. Where do you start? Market research and competitive analysis.
To look at your competition is not just to be aware of what is out there in the market, it’s about evaluating not just short-term trends, but blue sky evergreen products. And you can start with your own consumer behavior, as you are one as well.
Look into the past 3 months of your own purchases and start analyzing differences in the pricing. You will figure out that there’s one product that costs more than the standard but you still bought it, and that’s because you perceive that specific solution more valuable than others you’ve seen.
“The difference in perceived value is the service and the outcome of that particular product.”
NEIL
Neil explains the three types of buying mentalities or different types of solution-oriented mentalities:
- The ones who take the standard price, even when there’s something that’s inconvenient about it (i.e. waiting period).
- The ones who go and search for different options, especially the cheapest ones, because they think they can solve that problem on their own.
- The ones who are willing to pay more for something they perceive as more valuable (i.e. shorter waiting period).
Once you understand this, you can further analyze your competitors. How are they taking care of their customers? Do they have only one solution? Or do they have a second, third, and fourth product for them? This will organically lead you to figure out who they are serving first. Are you doing a thorough analysis that you can identify the age, group, gender, type, location, hobbies, and maybe even what else they’re spending money on?
This is the key to your success, now you can use this information to present a high-perceived value product to your customers, and we all know, the most valuable customer is the one that returns and recommends you, so the more you know about their perceived value, the better you can serve them.
“The equation is simple, Similarity + Familiarity = TRUST.”
NEIL
Now that you know what they perceive as more valuable, make it crystal clear that you sell a valuable product. Create great images, write great copy, and make sure your selling points and marketing are as incredible as your product.
“If you have crappy images and crappy copy or there are grammatical mistakes, even if your product is great… It doesn’t matter. It’s going to come off crappy.”
NORM FARRAR
“We have a lifestyle-driven to the business, not a business that drives our lifestyle.”
If you want to learn about the top five categories of Amazon, and also the ones that you want to stay away from, tune in and listen to the full episode above. There’s tons of advice and knowledge shared!