Brad Stone is the author of The Everything Store, a book about the early days of Amazon. Brad offers amazing insights into the unconventional success of Amazon then and now.

Brad Stone Amazon’s Unconventional Success Then and Now 259

In 2015, Kevin Rizer started a brand, selling products on Amazon. It quickly grew from a hobby into a multi-million dollar empire. A year later, Kevin started recording conversations with successful sellers, and launched a podcast to tell their stories. That podcast was called “Private Label Podcast”. In the time since, the podcast has become a movement with tens of thousands of loyal followers, and is today the authoritative source for information and inspiration on selling on Amazon, e-commerce and entrepreneurship.

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Jonathan Gabriel looks back on The Best of Private Label Movement 2018 in episodes with Jeremy Sherk, Rob Kosberg, Chakra Yendapally and Nathan Lind.



There's more to being successful at private label than just adding products to Amazon. Jonathan's guests are successful entrepreneurs who have found thier niche in the online marketplace.



Listen in as his guests discuss the importance of choosing the right product, leveraging your expertise, bookkeeping for private label entrepreneurs and building relationships.







Jeremy Sherk Nested Naturals



Jeremy is an 8-figure entrepreneur, speaker, health nut, and Co-Founder and CEO at Nested Natural, an e-commerce supplement company.



He's a best-seller pro that focuses on great products but also reinvests heavily into his business on Amazon and through other platforms where he can control his brand more readily. 



Connect with Jeremy



Nested Naturals



Rob Kosberg Best Seller Publishing



Rob was running a hundred-million-dollar real estate company when the recession hit and was forced to reinvent himself. Today, he's the founder and CEO of Best Seller Publishing and he's proud to say that he's found a way to leverage his expertise to positively impact others.



Connect with Rob



Best Seller PublishingFacebook



Chakra Yendapally Virtual Bookkeeping



Chakra is a 6-figure, soon-to-be 7-figure seller in Amazon. He created his own virtual bookkeeping company and talks about the importance of creating a brand.



Connect with Chakra



Junglebooks



Nathan Lind Seller, Coach and Community Builder



Nate is a successful online seller that doesn’t just focus on Amazon. He has created relationships with affiliates to continue to push his products. Nate is insightful as a seller, a coach and entrepreneur.



Connect with Nate



NateLindFacebook Messenger



Sponsor:



Sellerboard.com



Connect with Jonathan



LinkedInEmail Jonathan



Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed The Best of Private Label Movement 2018. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

The Best of Private Label Movement 2018 016

The constant evolution of e-commerce requires passage of regulations for the industry. But how do they truly work in relation to those affected? On this episode, Internet lawyer Richard Chapo shares valuable insights on sales tax, GDPR, and copyright issues.



“In the Wayfair decision, basically the Supreme Court said that states can collect sales tax regardless of where you're located.” - Richard Chapo



Wayfair and the Amazon Wars



Richard has clients who deal with physical product sales. The debate as to whether states could tax certain Internet sales has finally culminated with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Wayfair case. The so-called Amazon wars took 20 years in total.



“One of the problems with the Internet is it takes the supreme court a long time to get around to deciding on something.” - Richard Chapo



Sales Tax Discourse



The Supreme Court sets the law for the land as far as court systems go. Once they have made a decision, all courts in the country must follow, whether they are state or federal. This is why everyone has been watching the Wayfair decision since news of it broke out.



Tax authorities in some states... they were never really gonna look at small guys and look at just the larger guys because of the amount of time and effort they spend isn't gonna be commensurate with the amount of money they would get out of hunting small guys. - Richard Chapo



This ruling understandably sent everyone into panic mode. But people who were writing articles missed a very important caveat. Sales tax may be collected as long as it’s not excessively burdensome on small businesses.



Thresholds Set and Details to Iron Out



Certain thresholds have been set to regulate the collection of sales tax. However, sales tax is not only charged at the state level. Details must be ironed out and a program must be implemented if sales tax is truly to be regulated.



To hear more about taxation, how GDPR affected e-commerce, and issues on copyright, download and listen to the episode.



Connect with Richard Chapo:



Richard A. Chapo, Esq.Internet Lawyer Advising Online BusinessesP: (619) 637-6043SoCalInternetLawyer.comLinkedIn



Sponsor:



Sellerboard.com



Connect with Jonathan



LinkedInEmail Jonathan



Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed Richard Chapo on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

Richard Chapo – Internet Lawyer for Businesses 015

Vladi Gordon is the founder and CEO of Sellerboard, a financial services tool for Amazon sellers. Today, he shares the story behind the tool and what sellers can learn to improve profit by keeping track of customer insights as they relate to revenue.



Bookkeeping, or stuff like Excel, it's not the thing that entrepreneurs like most unless, I guess, they're bookkeepers or owners of bookkeeping companies. - Vladi GordonVladi Gordon - Taking a Shot at SellingVladi started out as a seller back in 2015 in Germany. He was working in a software company when he heard of the new trend in online selling, Amazon. He started taking interest in private label products when there was buzz about the virtual reality glasses, Google Cardboard.



When Vladi found a much cheaper alternative to the VR glasses, he ordered ten of them. Because he was the only person in Germany who was selling these glasses, they sold out fast. The same went for the next hundred glasses he put up on his online store.



Curse of Shiny ObjectsBut like other trendy products, the sales explosion lasted only for as long as the marketplace wasn’t saturated. For a time, fidget spinners and selfie sticks were huge. They never stood the test of time, though.



That's the problem with trendy products. if you catch the wave, you explode, but then everybody else comes in and the market dies completely. - Vladi GordonBirth of SellerboardVladi tried to source some more products after the VR glasses noise went out, but they didn’t really do well. He reached a point when he could no longer tell whether he was making money. 



He sought for a tool to help address this concern, but he didn’t find any that he liked. So, he partnered up with some developers to make one. It took off and they all decided to focus on it, hence the conception of Sellerboard.



We learned a lot from our customers in the last two years and I kind of put down a list of five hidden profit killers which are very underestimated by sellers. - Vladi GordonTo hear more about Sellerboard and the five profit killers, download and listen to the episode.



Connect with Vladi Gordon



Sellerboard - Partner Link



Connect with Jonathan



LinkedInEmail Jonathan



Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed Vladi Gordon on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

Vladi Gordon – Amazon Seller and Founder, CEO of Sellerboard 014

Jon MacDonald is the President and Founder of The Good, the most trusted e-commerce conversion rate and customer experience optimization advisory company. They started about ten years ago. When they first built the company, they focused mainly on e-commerce development.



"Bringing your consumer into the process is extremely important because they are the ones who are doing the research." - Jon MacDonald
Origin of The Good



They built e-commerce sites for brands that wanted their own channel for sales online. They discovered a lot of things along the way.




First of all, development was becoming and has become a commodity. Everyone can find a developer or a shop that will build their e-commerce site. Some of the more popular platforms include Shopify and BigCommerce who do not require a lot of development skills to at least get something set up.


Jon MacDonald Becoming Different



In order to set them apart from everyone else, The Good offered a three-month optimization engagement after launching sites for every client that came in.



"What we found out was most brands were doing a launch and leave philosophy." - Jon MacDonald



Most brands would launch their site and then their development company would leave them on their own. The Good handles this differently. They ask their clients to stick around for three months in order to optimize.


Keeping Clients Happy



They found out that most brands put more value in the optimization than the quality of coding. They weren’t really concerned about the quality of the site that the developers built from a technical aspect. As long as it worked and processed orders and they were converting highly, clients were very happy.



"We needed to focus on that optimization, where we were really different, and at the time, there wasn't even a term for conversion rate optimization." - Jon MacDonald



Before they started this movement, optimization wasn't a common idea within e-commerce sites. But now it has become a wonderful part of the process.

To hear more about The Good and Jon's story, download and listen to the episode.


Connect with Jon MacDonald

 	JonMacDonald.com
 	Twitter
 	LinkedIn

Connect with Jonathan

 	LinkedIn
 	Email Jonathan

Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed Jon MacDonald on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

Jon MacDonald CEO of The Good – Conversion and Optimization Specialist 013

Nathan Hirsh is a veteran Amazon seller with over 25 million in sales. He's currently the founder and CEO of FreeeUp an online outsourcing company.
Ever Evolving E-commerce
When Nathan started it was him and two other people on every listing. Sometimes there wasn't anyone else to compete with. Today, that's unheard of.

Nathan's business model is drop-shipping which has become harder and harder to do through Amazon. Sellers must do it by creating their own stores and driving traffic to it.
"Turnover is expensive. Once you find the people that are the core parts of your business, figure out how you keep them." - Nathan Hirsch on the importance of each position within a company
He didn't even know what private label was until about six years into selling on Amazon. Today, that's where everyone gets started and you have all of the gurus who sell massive volumes on Facebook and social media.
Amazon's Rule Changes
This is probably the biggest change to e-commerce. When Nathan started it was your cancellation rate and your refund rate. Now, it seems as if a new metric is added every six months.
"I've always looked at everything as a ticking time-bomb and what is the window." - Nathan Hirsch on new opportunities
Because of all the changes, reviews are harder to obtain, it's harder to follow Amazon's FBA price changes and now you have sales tax. All of the rule changes have changed the dynamic of selling on Amazon.
Nathan Hirsch Textbook Reseller
Nathan made his first sales with textbooks. During his college career, at the end of each semester, he would buy up textbooks.
"What am I the best at and how do I spend my time doing that? - Nathan Hirsch on outsourcing
Initially, he sold on Book Scouter where they would compare prices between Amazon and every other bookstore online. Nathan would sell his books to the highest paying retail for them to resell. Because of Amazon's improvements, he opened his first online store to sell directly to the open market.
Baby Product Niche
Due to his success selling books, Nathan was hooked on selling products online and the inherent opportunities. He tried his hand at several items like video games and failed miserably. Just because he failed did not mean he would give up.

While still in college, Nathan stumbled upon a baby product opportunity and was soon listing products online during his classes. Before he knew it, at 20 years old, he was running a multi-million dollar baby product business.
"With all of Amazon's changes, it felt like we were treading water, we were not growing." - Nathan Hirsch on his decision to move on from Amazon
When Nathan started selling his products there were no keywords, he was just posting items and seeing what would stick. His profits were doubling each year until mass competition moved in. They were still making money but they were not growing.

To hear the rest of Nathan's story and the outsourcing he's doing now, download and listen to the episode!
Connect with Nathan Hirsch

 	FreeeUp

Connect with Jonathan

 	LinkedIn
 	Email Jonathan

Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed Nathan Hirsch on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

Brad Stone Amazon’s Unconventional Success Then and Now 259

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